


A Mess of Ordinary Love Stories

by Captainkirkmccoy (faithintheboys)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adoption, Age Difference, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Blow Jobs, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Celebrations, Character Death, Children, Codependency, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Family, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Graduation, Holidays, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Insecure Jim Kirk, Jealousy, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Married Couple, Misunderstandings, Mother-Son Relationship, Multi, Presumed Dead, Protective Bones, Protective Kirk, Protectiveness, Rescue Missions, Reunions, Starfleet Academy, Tarsus IV, Team as Family, Thanksgiving, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 109
Words: 61,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7844254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithintheboys/pseuds/Captainkirkmccoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A McKirk story for almost every scenario possible. From Captainkirkmccoy on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dog Tags

So there’s this tradition in Starfleet when a cadet graduates. 

When you step off the stage after accepting your degree, you’re supposed to slip your cadet dogtags off your neck and give them to the person who helped you graduate, who got you through it. 

Most, predictably, give it to their moms. Some, their dads, who served themselves. Usually, their significant others. 

Jim’s mom couldn’t make it. And well, everyone knows why his dad wasn’t there (a fact the admirals keep wanting him to cash in on–they even asked him to make a speech at graduation. Pike told them where to stick it.)

Anyway, they graduate the Bridge Crew of the Enterprise first–the ones who hadn’t. It’s mostly ceremonial recognition but Jim’s glad for it. He’s not usually nervous on stage–although large crowds have made him anxious since he was thirteen–but it’s hot and his ribs still burn and he’s so damn tired. He hasn’t slept since, well, before his hearing. And that was only a few weeks ago. Fuck.

But before it, he’s walking across the stage, shaking hands with the brass, and getting pinned–Captain’s pin–and smiling. Somehow, after everything, he’s smiling. 

Awkwardly, as he’s jogging down the steps, Starfleet uniform cap pinned at his side, hand scrabbling under his collar for the dogtags as he’s walking a few aisles away from his own seat. 

“Hey hot shot, your seat’s over there,” Bones tells him–but he’s grinning toward the place where Pike and the other Captains are waiting. 

“Bones-” Jim’s got a good grip on the chain even though he’s fucking hands are sweaty. 

Maybe it’s a stupid fucking idea. Bones didn’t give his tags to anyone. And why would he? Besides a little girl in Georgia, there was no one else. 

Before he can think too much about it, he tugs it off, holding it in front of him. 

“Aw, kid.” Bones whispers. 

And before Jim can about face or apologize or take back the sentimental gesture, Bones takes his fist out of his pocket, knuckles white, and loosens his grip, giving way to a palm indented by the punched out metal lettering: Leonard H. McCoy, Starfleet Cadet, ID: 116592213

“No one else I would have given them to.”

Somewhere, someone hoots–probably Cupcake, maybe Uhura and then Bones is pulling Jim closer, fingers lightly grazing his jaw, the back of his neck, gripping into his hair. 

The kiss is a surprise–Jim’s mouth is dry, his lips are chapped, but it feels so damn right and maybe Jim’s cheek flushes, and maybe Chris Pike laughs out loud but it’s worth it. Definitely worth it.


	2. Closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Georgia, people are buried when they die.

Back in Georgia, people are buried when they die.

There’s a wake and a funeral and a grave to go visit and grieve over. His father had one. It was awful. But it was there. It provided some closure and at that point, he took what little he could get.

For Jim, there is no body to recover. There can be no wake or funeral or grave. There is no closure. There’s a packed memorial at Starfleet headquarters.

There’s a stone in the Remembrance Garden. But that isn’t enough. Because they were married, he gets credits because Jim was killed serving Starfleet. He gets promoted too for doing all he could to recover Jim on the planet they were forced to abandon his remains on.

He gets a scar across his knuckles after he smashes every old picture frame and glass surface in their shared quarters. He gets to be a widower. No longer just a divorcee.

Sixth months after collecting those stupid, useless credits from Starfleet, after falling asleep every night to a half empty bottle of top shelf bourbon, Scotty’s frantic comm startles him out of a drunken dreamless slumber.

“Len, my lad, you might want to come down here.”

He’s rethinking staying on the Enterprise for Jim’s benefit, because Jim would want him to stay with their family, their friends. He could be in Georgia, sleeping off his hangovers and trying to forget the color of his husband’s eyes or Jim's happy satisfied sigh when they settled in for bed.

“What is it?” He growls, ignoring the pain in his head from the bright lights of the transporter room when he stomps his way there.

“Bones.”

Bones blinks. Standing there, with a beard as matted as Bones’ own recent attempts, and clothes that look like they only manage to cover ten percent of him, is Jim.

He swallows down some bile and winces at the light that attacks his eyes when he turns to Scotty. “Scott. Tell me this is some transporter fuck up. Tell me right now and I can walk away and not break your neck.”

“Len, it’s him."

"It’s me, Bones. Promise.” Jim steps off the transporter pad and takes a few steps toward Bones.

They both sort of fall into each other and Bones reaches forward to touch Jim’s cheek, feeling him solid and warm and alive.

“Jim?” Bones breathes like he hasn't come up for air in months.

 Jim nods and Bones just crumples.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Jim is saying, running a hand over Bones hair and burying his head into Bones neck.

Bones pulls away enough to kiss him, tasting salt and and Jim’s parched lips and knowing that he needs to check him out, wake the others, alert Starfleet but right now all he wants to do is be here. Bones widens the kiss and moves his hands around Jim’s neck, secure in the knowledge that he gets to be Jim Kirk’s husband again.


	3. Blowjob Deathfic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for character death.

“Jesus, fuck.” Bones says when Jim runs the tip of his tongue over the underside of Bones’ cock. They’re tangled up in the sheets on a rainy sunday afternoon, docked on Earth for shore leave. Bones has his hands gripped in the mattress at his sides, Jim hanging over him and chuckling as Bones squirms. 

_“Jesus, fuck.” Bones says two weeks later when he’s pressing the insides of Jim’s stomach back inside the hole the size of his fist, ignoring the way his throat seizes at all the blood and the way Jim’s eyes are rolling in the back of his head and his face is growing too pale._

“Hey, stop that.” Bones says when Jim nips at his inner thigh. He wants to kick Jim in the back of his head for teasing but _god_ , the kid’s mouth. He’s sweating and the hair at the back of his neck is sticky because he just wants release but the build up is so damn good. 

“Look at me, Bones.” Jim says and Bones strains, he can barely see straight, to look up and Jim kneeling at the edge of the bed, getting ready for more. 

_“Hey, stop that.” Bones says gently when Jim reaches up to touch his face. Jim’s fingers brush the side of his jaw, a feather light touch, and Bones doesn't have the heart or the time to wipe away at the blood starting to dry there._

_They’re too far from where they were ambushed, where they dropped the rest of the medical supplies, and Bones doesn’t have enough to patch him together._

_“Look at me, Bones.” Jim says, his lips stained too red, his words a gurgle. And Bones swallows hard and meets Jim’s eyes-even though he doesn’t want to see him fading, not now, not ever._

“Jim. Baby.” Bones says, babbling. He bucks as Jim takes him fully and then let’s go, leaving Bones cock to the air, gooseflesh rising on every inch of his body. He shivers.

_“Jim? Baby?” Bones asks. He shakes Jim with the other hand, his heart pounding at the way the other man’s head sagged into the dirt and the way his eyes drifted close._

_He’s feeling frantically for a pulse--too frantic to be professional but when has he ever been professional when it came to Jim-- when he feels a pull on his shoulders and whips around to see Sulu and the rest of the away team, hovering uselessly. Sulu’s screaming that they have to go, _go now_ , there’s no time and he’s reaching toward Jim, about to gather him up, but Sulu pushes him aside to heft Jim up into his arms and Bones can tell already by the droop in the pilot's shoulders. It’s too late. He's gone._


	4. Fools and Young Kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: Bones finally gets it into jim's head that of all the people that leave him, Bones isn't going to be one of them, but jim has a bit of a breakdown at this realization. there's kissing involved on both of their parts

It happens simply. They’re washing dishes in the kitchen of Bones’ parents farmhouse. Eleanor has retired to the living room to watch the news vids after Bones and Jim ganged up on her about cleaning up. Bones is a steady, silent presence, his flannel covered shoulder brushing up against Jim’s bare one as the Captain washes the same dish for the third time. 

“I think you missed a spot,” Bones says, smiling a little as Jim snaps out of his thoughts. 

“Sorry,” he says and hands Bones the dish to dry. 

“What’s bothering you?”

“Does something have to be bothering me?” Jim asks, with a little more force than he intended, wrenching a hand towel off the counter and wiping his hands.

“Is this about what Ma said at dinner? About getting married?”

Jim shrugs, working on soaping up the serving knife from the peach pie. “You don’t have to say anything, Bones. I know how you feel about it.”

Bones takes the washcloth from where Jim abandoned it on the counter and slingsit over his shoulder. “How do I feel?”

“You were already married. Said it was for fools and young kids.”

Bones grimaces. That does sound like something he would say. Something grumpy and below the belt. Jim had told him once that everyone leaves him for one reason or the other. This is probably the reason Jim has marked down for Bones. 

“You know, we’re the exception to that.” Bones tries for a light tone, but it cracks. He's never been good at saying anything less than what it is. 

He knows they’re serious, knows they’re committed, if only Jim could believe in him. Bones tries again: "Just because I didn't want to get married then, doesn't mean I wouldn't now. And it doesn't mean I'm going to leave." 

A heavy silence follows. Bones can hear his mama in the other room, turning up the volume on the vid to give them privacy. He can hear the crickets out the back door and the wind-chimes as they sway in a twilight breeze. 

Jim pushes away from the sink and the serving knife clatters in response. This is the moment that Jim shuts down. He wipes his hands on his jeans and slips out the backdoor, letting the screen slam behind him.Bones curses and follows. 

Jim hasn’t made it far, only to the copse of trees by the edge of the field. Just beyond that is the barn, where the horses are and the tire swing and hayloft, where he spent most of his time thinking and being too serious a kid.

“Hey,” Bones says softly as he approaches. Jim's fingers are twitching at his sides and Bones is glad that he confiscated the cigarettes he found at the bottom of Jim's duffle--a habit he thought he broke him of at the Academy. 

Bones reaches out gently and lets his fingertips trail over his elbow. He’s always treated Jim like the horses he was taught to train as a boy. Skittish and bound with energy, Jim might dash any second.

“You really…want this.” Jim gestures widely at himself and between them. "You're not just saying it. You mean it."

Bones has never been good with words. He finds it easier to use old Southern sayings than say what's on his mind, easier to grumble and complain that express the worry, anxiety whenever Jim does something Jim like. This is no different. Opening his mouth would probably shove his foot farther into his mouth. 

So instead, Bones closes the gap and kisses him, putting as much as he can into the kiss, his hand coming around to palm the back of Jim’s neck. Jim’s mouth opens in greeting, like he just found the final missing puzzle piece in a 500 piece jigsaw. 

“Of course, darlin’ I'm not going anywhere.”


	5. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Prompt: "The bridge crew takes part in an intense, serious game of hide and seek. in the end jim and bones cannot be found."

Jim does this sometimes. Throws a curve ball and calls it an emergency planning drill. Last month it was laser tag. This week it’s epic hide and seek. 

“The whole ship is on limits. Go.” He makes the security team the seekers. Figures if they’re not able to find the Bridge Crew in a game of Hide and Seek, how can they do it in a crisis?

“Count to five hundred or something,” Jim says, waving his hand as he gets on the turbolift. Cupcake and his crew look a bit concerned as the doors close and they are left on the Bridge, the auxilliary lights kicking in as Scotty cuts the power. 

“Be ready for some surprises,” Jim had said and he had to bite back a grin for at Cupcake's growing scowl.

The game lasted five hours. Five hours of the ship going so dark that the only lights came out the windows from the stars. He had Scotty queue up some loud 2000’s pop music to play over the speakers at random intervals. 

Security tracked down each Bridge Crew member. Except the Captain. And Doctor McCoy. 

“Jesus, I knew he was good, but I didn’t think he was that good.” Sulu said, wiping a hand over his brow. The heat had been turned up. 

“Bastard’s not in engineering. Made sure of that didn't I?” Scotty beamed. 

“If we must participate in this illogical game, than we must think illogically.” Spock said and Uhura giggled--some gaseous (mostly harmless) substance akin to laughing gas had been let out in the hallways surrounding the bridge. She sobered up when he frowned at her. 

“If Kirk doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.” Sulu said and rubbed at his eyes. 

An hour later, Jim comm’d Security and the Bridge Crew to the Shuttle Bay, just as he docked a shuttle. 

“You said the ship was the limit!” One of the security team said, an Ensign whose eyes watering from one of the traps he stepped into before entering he Shuttle Bay.

“You really think anyone who breaches the ship is going to play by the rules?” Jim said, slapping the ensign on the back. 

A minute later, Bones stumbled out of the shuttle, hair tousled and uniform ever so slightly crooked. He nodded at the Bridge Crew and followed in Jim’s general direction, muttering something about unsanitary shuttles and crossing another location off of some sort of stupid fucking list. 

The Ensign was the only one who blushed. Everyone else was used to it.


	6. Just Say Yes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It started just so Jim could piss Bones off.

It started just so Jim could piss Bones off. 

Bones had explicitly stated that he would NEVER, EVER, get married again. He’d go on a space walk before he got married (Jim didn’t point out that he did indeed have to go on a spacewalk when Jim got impaled and was likely to bleed out if Bones hadn't gone out there and saved him and…yeah). So Bones said no marriage. Ever again. They didn't need it. 

One day, they go to their favorite restaurant–-favorite because no one makes a fuss about them coming in and the owner, Bobby, gives them the corner table which is quiet and private–-when Jim sees it. A proposal. 

Bobby brings over champagne to a couple that just got engaged. And thank Christ Bones was in the bathroom for the whole sputtering affair because Jim’s second hand embarrassment for the guy is painful. But the way Bobby flutters around and makes a huge fucking deal of it makes Jim think that, hey, he could totally do this. 

Bones comes back from the bathroom and digs back into his steak, the only time he ever orders red meat. 

Jim grins. Bones would call it his shit-stirring grin. 

Bones places his fork and knife down like he would place a scalpel. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Not one bit.”

He gets down on one knee. He fake cries, kissing Bones’ palm where he asks if Bones would make him the happiest man in the world by saying yes. 

He doesn’t know what’s more worth it, Bobby’s blubbering Italian, Bones’ beet red face, or the free meal and champagne they get out of the deal. 

Bones doesn’t go out to dinner with him for two months after that. And then they head back out again and everyone on the Enterprise thinks they’re married anyway.

But Jim's kind of-sort of addicted to proposing. Every shore leave they get, when Jim’s sure getting engaged doesn’t require impaling yourself or something, Jim proposes.

And after the third or fourth time Bones no longer throws something at him or storms out. 

He just calls him an infant and kisses his temple, hiding his grin. 

Jim can live with not getting married. The proposals are just the fun part. 

The shit hits the fan when a photographer takes a picture of the encounter on a newly terraformed planet. Not two minutes after walking out of the restaurant and Bones and Jim’s comms blow up. Call and text after call and text that neither can keep up. 

“We’re fucked, we’re fucking fucked.” Jim grabs Bones by the shoulders and shake him. 

“You idiot, I’ve got my Mama on the line asking when we’re having grand babies." 

"So screwed…so so screwed.”

And so they lay low for a while. They avoid paparazzi (how the hell do they even get past security anyway?) as best they can and don’t go out to dinner. Jim misses the free desserts and champagne but doesn’t mention it to Bones. 

It isn’t until their shore leave on Earth, when Bones has gone to Georgia to visit Jo and Jim is holed up in his apartment to sleep for three months when he gets a knock on his door. 

“Whassit?” He asks, not caring that he’s in his boxers or doesn't even have his shirt on. He doesn’t even care that a Pap could be at the door. He opens it. 

Bones, shore leave scruff and faded blue jeans, pushes past him. “Get dressed. We’re going to dinner.”

Jim rubs the sleep out of his eyes and yawns. “Can’t.”

“Don’t be an infant. Just get ready.”

“Thought you were in Georgia with Jo.”

“Well apparently I was outnumbered on this.”

“About what?” Jim asks and heads to the bedroom for pants. 

“About things. Just hurry up, will you? We have reservations.”

Jim doesn’t comment on the idea of reservations or the fact that they go to Bobby’s (Jim’s pretty sure Bobby banned them when he found out they weren’t actually engaged). 

They sit at the middle table this time and Jim tries not to stare too hard at the people all around them--not that he can even get a good look. He can’t even see their faces with all of them with either their noses in menus or generally avoiding Jim’s gaze. 

“Did Bobby start catering to Section 31 agents?” Jim mutters. 

“I don’t know. You ready to order?”

Jim gets what he always gets–chicken and dumplings, yellow turnips, mac and cheese and extra biscuits. Bones orders the steak. 

“You didn’t have to come all the way from Bobby’s for steak, you know.” Jim points out. 

“I kind of did.” Bones says and before Jim knows it, his best friend, boyfriend, fake fiancé is down on one knee. 

“What are you doing?” Jim whispers. “Bobby will kill us again. No free pie for you.”

“Jim.” Bones says--too serious for a fake proposal. 

“Bones.” Jim replies and tries to ignore the way his cheeks are starting to heat up.

“You know I’m not…hell, I’m not good at this." He tries for a smile. "But, I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I was stupid. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life not married to you. So…darlin’, will you marry me?” Bones pulls out a small box, a metal one that looks like the type they carry around small but valuable parts on the ship. Inside is a ring. A shiny platinum ring. 

Jim’s mouth does not drop open but his eyes get pretty wide. He rocks back in his chair. “Damn, that was good.” He peers down at the ring. “Did Scotty make that for you?" 

Bones raises his one eyebrow. "Is that a yes than?”

Jim laughs. “I never really thought about the ring before. I mean, that’s a nice touch. But seriously, man, I don’t think Bobby-”

A menu flips down. “Just say yes, already!” It’s Uhura. In all her exasperated glory.

A little girl with brown braids pops up. “He worked really hard on this Uncle Jim.”

“Lord almighty I didn’t realize I raised an idiot.” Winona Kirk appears behind the kitchen door. 

More and more of their friends and family appear behind menus, turn around from their tables, walk out from the bathroom hallway. 

Jim looks at them. Looks at the ring. Looks at Bones face, lips quirked in a smile, soft brown eyes challenging him. 

He grabs the other man by the neck and pulls him up, saying what he has to in a way that leaves them both breathless. 

Bobby brings them out champagne. Jim gets free dessert, a ring and an actual fiancé.


	7. Damn Lucky Pancakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damn Lucky pancakes are a guarded McCoy tradition.

Damn Lucky pancakes are a guarded McCoy tradition, passed through generations to whoever has a baking gene in their body. 

Truth was, David McCoy did not possess any baking gene. He was a wonderful doctor and had the gentlest hands this side of the Mason Dixon but could blow up a replicator with a look. Which is why Mae McCoy passed down the Damn Lucky recipe to Eleanor McCoy. And when he was old enough, Eleanor taught the recipe to her son with a sky blue bowl and a metal whisk. 

Damn Lucky Pancakes called for:

1) About as much flour as the bowl could manage

2) A cup or two of sugar depending on the mood

3) Some baking powder

4) Pinch of salt

5) Squirt of vanilla

6) The stubborn headedness of a McCoy

7) And someone (could even be something) who made you feel damn lucky

Leo made the pancakes only once for Jocelyn who wrinkled her nose at them and pushed them away. “I don’t like pancakes, Len. You know that.”

He never had occasion to make them again. But he sure as hell took the blue bowl with him in the divorce. 

The first time he makes them at Starfleet, he’s in a matchbox academy apartment with the only cadet he could imagine living with. They had been on campus for two weeks, most of the time being a whirlwind of paperwork and trials at SF medical. Jim had finally dragged him out to a bar on the edge of campus, slapping him jovially on the back before finding a corner of the bar that wasn’t occupied with green looking cadets whose eyes were still getting used to the look of unsupervised freedom. 

He’s not sure what happened that night but for the first time in weeks, months, hell years, he felt like a weight had been lifted. He could just sit and not worry about his father, Jocelyn, the practice. He had a schedule, a friend who wanted to spend time with him and a cobbled together vision of the future that was his own. He was damn lucky, even if he still felt broken when he had time to think about it. But he hadn’t had time to think had he? 

The next morning he made Jim and himself their first non-replicated meal with the blue bowl and metal whisk. 

“Holy shit, Bones. These are the best fucking things I ever had.” The kid moaned as he dipped a piece of the pancake into the brown sugar syrup (a perfect match to the Damn Lucky recipe but it was one he concocted on his own). 

“Family recipe,” Bones, a name he could get used to, said and sunk into the small creaky chair. 

“Jesus fuck, you are literally the best roommate ever.”

He doesn’t tell Jim about the origin of the Damn Lucky pancakes until the morning after their first time in bed. They’d been working their way up to it for a while. Just hadn’t had the right motivation, even if Gaila kept pushing them together and leaving them alone when they all went out, or if Uhura rolled her eyes at Bones every time Jim tried to flirt. His heart wasn’t in it anymore, Uhura told him, any guesses why? 

So they finally get together after Jim goes missing on his survival practicum. Two weeks on a planet in a regulated course sounded like hell to Bones and thank christ he wasn’t a command cadet. He believed, though, when Jim had assured him it would be fine. Had to be fine. Never counted on Starfleet losing communication with the five cadets on the planet or a ion storm forcing the ship in orbit to retreat.

Bones had long since come to terms that he may be the only one besides Pike who cared about Jim’s well being. He signed the papers listing him as the kid’s next of kin a few months after they had truly become acquainted with each other and had never looked back on the decision. 

It was the only reason, besides Pike of course, that SF was giving him updates at all. 

Forty-eight hours past the time the cadets were supposed to be picked up, treated for the host of injuries they no doubt suffered, and on their way back to Earth, they stil had no idea where Jim and his team was. 

Pike paced his office, threw a Padd at the desk and snapped at Kate, his kind and patient yeoman, who snapped back at him in return, no disrespect, sir. 

Bones had went straight from worried to full on panicked and threatened Jim with every hypo he knew and a physical he promised would be thorough. 

He realized that he had been shaking. Shaking from the moment they said they lost contact with the shuttle. Shaking when he realized there was a distinct possibility that Jim was gone. That Jim, the brightest person he knew, the pain in his ass that could never go away, was gone. He ached to have him there. To have Jim slap him on the back and roll his eyes, embarrassed that someone was actually worrying about him. He wanted to nothing more than to curl up with him, burying Jim’s face in the junction between neck and shoulder and just lay together until Jim was okay again. He needed Jim there. He loved him. And jesus, how come he didn’t realize that before?

Took a few minutes for Pike to calm down and when he did he poured the good stuff for both of them. 

“Not my story to tell but I want to let you know why I didn’t want Jim going down there just yet." 

Bones had froze, the glass just inches from his lips. "What do you mean?”

“Did Jim ever tell you about Tarsus IV, Doctor McCoy?”

Two revelations rocked him to his core that day and he spent the better part of the next day throwing up with the worse hangover he had ever had. He let himself suffer, knowing that Jim must be and prayed to any god willing to listen that Jim came back. Safe and sound. 

And he did. Dehydrated, broken ribs, concussion, Bones was there running alongside the biobed as it was transferred from shuttle to ER. He held Jim’s hand until he woke up, gently kissing every bruised knuckle and rubbing his thumb down the backside of his hand. 

Jim’s lips were chapped, his eyes bruised and puffy, and his hair choppy and short where they had to cut it to stitch him up but as Bones pulled him close for a kiss they apparently had both been waiting for, none of that mattered. 

A week later they tore each other’s close off-Bones, gently and Jim as if it were a race-and pushed their beds together in the matchbox apartment. 

He made the pancakes the next morning, knowing the true meaning of their name and feeling like the luckiest man in the world. 

“Damn lucky,” Jim said as he stared at their entwined fingers. 

“Damn straight,” Bones said and got up to go make them breakfast.


	8. Gifted McCoys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All McCoys are born with a gift.

All McCoys are born with a gift. Or a curse, depending on your outlook.

The curse came knocking on your twenty-second birthday. It didn’t care who you were with, your life plans, where you were headed. It showed up and expected you to take notice.

“It’s a curse, pure and simple.” Leonard’s grandmama Ella said when Leo pestered her about it when he was only nine. “Why anyone would choose to suffer is beyond me.”

“It’s a gift,” Leo’s mama said. “It bought me to your father.” 

Eleanor McCoy still thought that the day David was diagnosed with Xenopolycythemia and then the day they buried him. 

Leo was 22 when the xenopolycythemia took hold and offered no other way out. He was 22 when he assisted his father’s suicide. He was 22 when the curse started.

It happens to most as dreams. Dreams that give you two clear choices. Two paths. The one with your soulmate and the one without them. 

It was a curse because you weren’t often given much time with them. Either you passed away in some freak accident or you found them so late that you were old and grey. Leonard had heard stories passed from generation to generation of McCoys attempting to ignore the curse–to take the other path–to live without their other halves. 

But somehow, someway, the curse corrected the timeline of events, wove fate like a series of thread until you found someone you couldn’t imagine living without. 

Leonard refused to accept that. He couldn’t go through what his mother went through. He couldn’t imagine leaving anyone behind. He’d put the curse to an end. And never tell his children about it. 

Even when the dreams of a sandy blonde haired man with marble blue eyes started. Even when he felt in a dream the way he imagined being with your soulmate should feel. For weeks, despite himself, he woke up in an elated mood–the sensations and memories of the dreams spilling into the day with the same comfort and warmth he felt at night. 

And then the nightmares started. Each dream he got there too late, showing up to a medbay where a body bag was laid out in front of him and the man’s eyes were closed, his face bruised and bloodied. 

Well, fuck that. 

Leonard took extra sims and pulled extra intern hours at the clinic. He forced the dreams away–ignored the looks from his mother, the pitying glances from his tired-eyed grandmother. 

He married a woman with dark hair and hazel eyes who was too serious for her own good and never made him laugh. He loved her the way you love a friend. 

It was over before it began. 

He packed up his bags and fled. He moved faster than the curse could catch up. Space was a good place to hide. Starfleet would put him on a post so far away that the only beings he’d meet would be just passing through. 

He sat next to a sandy haired man on a shuttle with marble blue eyes. For a second, he thought he was too drunk–hallucinating on too little sleep and not enough food. 

Three years later, the curse became a gift. 

Even when Jim was laid out on a medbay table, unzipped body bag making him look too small, too young, too dead.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Jim had told him when Bones first explained the curse. “It’ll be me before you, you know that, right”

They had been lying on the cramped couch in Jim’s quarters. It was late, probably morning and Bones had felt the need to confess. 

Bones had kissed the top of his head. “I wouldn’t let you go anywhere, kid. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“I know, Bones.”

He couldn’t let that faith in him die right now. He couldn’t let this end. It wasn’t fair, damnit. His parents had years. He had four. 

And so he did what no other McCoy had done. He brought back his soulmate. He gave a finger to the curse. And he finally saw it as a gift.


	9. Finleys

Because Jim is a late addition to the Starfleet recruitment cycle, he’s not available right away for any of the on campus, work study jobs. Bones is handed clinic hours as soon as he steps on campus and he’s mostly okay with the graveyard shift, knowing that he has to pay his dues. 

Jim though, Jim has worked all his life. Whether it was hustling pool or poker in the dives around Riverside, or working as a mechanic in a local garage, he always had money in his pocket, split in two piles. For now and for later. Too many times he’d been stuck without a way out and if he was to live up to his new credo, not believing in no-win scenarios, he had to always have a way out. Money, he realized what as good a way out sometimes as any. 

The only place hiring was a family owned pizza place and bar, just outside the academy’s gates. A basic landmark, the building was over three hundred-years-old and the family had been there for longer. Finn’s it was called. 

They hired Jim after they gave him a trial at the bar. He had worked it before but he was a natural working it so that the tips were flowing and his charm was infectious. Finn’s had the best night in over a decade. 

“Good god, Jimmy.” Luke Finley said as he sat back in one of the velvet cushioned seat. “You wanna work here every night?”

Jim winked at him. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

And so Jim was adopted into the family. Luke Finley was one of eight brothers and sisters, four of which lived in the San Fran area. The rest spent their time hosting their mother and father who traveled to the colonies and parts of the Federation that their children had settled in. But when they came back, they embraced Jim too. 

Made him feel good. A happy comfortable calm settled over him, akin to confidence, when he stepped through the chipped wooden door of the old establishment. He was greeted always by regulars and workers alike. Girls would know his schedule, draping themselves over the bar and telling him that only he could make their special drink. 

But Jim only had eyes for Bones. Who would come on Saturday nights when he wasn’t working the clinic or after closing to pick Jim up. He’d wear the same beat up leather jacket he wore on the shuttle when they met. They would smile at each other over the girls and other patrons of the bar, Jim sliding him drinks and making sure Elsie, Luke’s Aunt, kept Bones fed. Which was good because Jim always felt bad that he couldn’t always eat. Lactose Intolerance was one of his sins and he could only have a few slices of pizza or Elsie’s famous Chicken and Eggplant Parm if Bones gave him a hypo first and Jim usually forgot to ask. 

Laurie Finley, one of the second cousins, vowed to make good on the promise to bring Jim into the family by seducing with her “orgasmic cooking”. Too bad Bones wasn’t around when Laurie basically spoon fed him the ravioli, which she insisted was meet and not cheese. Of course it also had a sprig of nutmeg in it and Jim stopped breathing about two minutes after taking his first bite. 

It was a good moment for Bones to walk in, Jim knew. Thank god he was more aware of Jim’s allergies that Jim was and always carried around a few epi-pens for good measure. 

Jim spent the night curled in a ball in Bones bed, making frequent trips to the bathroom because of the fucking mushrooms in the supposed meat only raviolis and sipping on ice water because of his sore throat. 

Luke gave him a whole week off and Laurie was sent back to the colony without any marriage proposals. Apparently Bones set her straight. 

After the Narada, Luke and Elsie hang up his news clippings around the bar (after making him sign an official Starfleet headshot) and dedicate a night to him. All the regulars come in and they sit around until way past closing, getting about as drunk as Bones would allow them, passing out hangover cure hypos while calling them all taxis. 

The sex was awesome that night too. Which is about the only thing Jim remembers. 

Before he goes after his five-year-mission, after Harrison and Marcus and his resurrection, Luke presses a key into his hand. “You got a home here, kid. You know that right? You and your doctor.”

Jim hugs him and promises to keep in touch, feeling the same warm feeling he had when he first started bar-tending. 

A year later, on shoreleave, he brings the Bridge Crew to the bar and lets his two families meet, with Bones and himself at the corner of the bar, watching amusedly as Elsie tries to coax Spock into eating eggplant parm and Luke flirt with Carol. 

It’s not a bad place to be.


	10. Just A Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Bones' birthday.

An arm snakes around Jim’s waist, fingers brushing up against his hip bone as Bones pulls him back under the covers. 

Bones must have snuck in after his shift while Jim dozed off. He shakes the grogginess from his head, wills his brain to unclog. 

“We have reservations.” He says but because of the congestion making it ridiculously hard to breathe it sounds like: We hab reberbations. 

Bones sighs around a breathy laugh and pushes up against his palm, elbow indenting the pillow. “Not with that cold, we don’t.”

Jim pouts. “But it’s your birthday.”

“Darlin’, a birthday is just a day. As you keep reminding me.” Bones fixes Jim with a look. “We can celebrate later.”

He hates that Bones is a doctor. He hates that Bones knows him better than anyone else has ever or probably will ever know him. Better than himself, obviously. And he hates the small ways that he fails to make it up to Bones. This dinner…well. It was supposed to be the prelude to a proposal. One that Jim’s been building up to for a long time. Bones deserves a ring. He deserves to be someone’s husband. He doesn’t deserve Jim getting sick. 

He groans into his pillow. “But we had reservations.”

It’s a first. With their schedules, they usually end up winging it. They usually wind up in some hole in the wall around the Academy, trying to maintain privacy over quality. But this time, Jim wanted to do it right. 

“Mhmm. And I’m impressed. But how about we order takeout and stay in bed? Sound good to you?”

Jim hates the way he melts into Bones’ side, head resting against his boyfriend’s chest. Bones’ rests his cheek against Jim’s head, lips brushing his forehead. 

“You’re a bit hot, baby.”

Jim shivers. It’s not the response he was aiming for. 

And suddenly Bones is gone. Jim groans as Bones moves around their bedroom. 

“What are you doing?” Jim asks, shielding his eyes from the dim light. His head swims as he raises his eyes to follow Bones’ form. 

“Getting you a hypo.” Bones mutters. 

“No. I’m fine.” He coughs. It’s weak. “Seriously. Just give me another hour. We can delay the reservations.”

He waits a beat while Bones faces him, brow furrowed mid thought. Jim’s expecting a reprimand, some of Bones’ gruff worrying. Nothing comes. The doctor’s face just softens. A small twitch of his lips. 

“What?” 

Bones shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.” Jim tells him as Bones pads back over to the bed, climbing over the bottom, hypo in hand. 

“I don’t think I need that.” 

With Jim’s tolerance to hypos, there was a distinct possibility that would knock him out. And they had plans. 

Bones palmed Jim’s neck, the place where with increasing regularity he was jabbing a hypo. This time, he was so gentle Jim could have cried. 

“Please, Bones. Just let me sleep it off.”

Bones leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jim’s cheek, his lips lingering for a second longer than normal. “Don’t worry about it, Jim.”

“Worry about what?”

“Kevin told me.”

Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Kevin needs to keep his mouth shut.” Kevin Riley was one of the most loyal of Jim’s younger crew but couldn’t keep a secret worth a damn. 

Bones chuckled. It sounded out of place with how shitty Jim suddenly felt. “Kevin didn’t mean to tell me. He heard it from Sulu who heard it from Chekov who heard it from Scotty who heard it from-”

Jim blew out a breath. It stung his lips. “I get the point.”

Bones pushed him down back onto the bed. “If it’s any consolation. I would say yes no matter when, where or how you asked me.”

Jim sighed as he nodded and Bones delicately administered the hypo, thumb rubbing over the injection point in a soothing circle. 

“Love you, Bones.” He whispered and snuggled close. 

“Love you more, darlin’."


	11. Magic Wheat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shark Tank AU

Leonard McCoy was the son and only heir of the McCoy fortune and god help him he had nearly passed out cold when his mother told him that his father was a wealthy man. 

They had always had money and were well off but he thought middle class not 1% of the Federation. 

The money is enough to get him a decent lawyer when Jocelyn files him for a divorce and enough that he gets shared custody of Jo. She might have well asked for the whole planet but he isn’t giving her their daughter. 

So he moves across the state and settles in at a hospital that isn’t as big as the one he served his residency in but isn’t the clinic he grew up helping out from either. 

And because he’s bored (and more than a little guilty to be filthy fucking rich) he becomes a member in the Federation Seeds Fund, a investment group of various members that fund projects from around the Federation. It’s something altruistic to do on the weekends he doesn’t have Jo. The kind hearted soul his mother swears he is takes pride in helping budding entrepreneurs. The bastard in him loves the way the funder’s board gets greedy and salivates when a Entrepreneur comes in with an idea that’s almost as good as starting Starfleet itself, or nearly. 

Except this particular Sunday has Leonard with a splitting headache and a need to take every one of the holo pitches and destroy their flashing colors and size ten font. The older ladies are tittering in the gossipy way his mother and nana frowned on from the back rows of Church. The men are half asleep and he hates it all. 

That is until the kid walks in the room. 

He’s wearing his Cadet reds and that is where his professionalism starts and ends. He has a scruffy looking expression, Leonard has only seen that kind of stubble in the mirror, and bright blue eyes. His shit eating grin is not one they’re used to seeing. They get nervous mouth twitching or friendly beaming. This kid looks at them like he’s the one about to hear their presentation. 

“Uh, Mr. Kirk is it?” Marshall Long, the meeting chancellor asks, sitting up and straightening the PADDs in front of him. 

“Yes sir. James T. Kirk.”

“And your project title?”

“Magic Wheat.”

“Excuse me?” Eloise Hawley, one of the tittering older ladies asks. 

“Magic Wheat.” Jim frowns. “It’s a working title.”

Leonard snorts and Jim turns his grin, replaced and full of shit-stirrer promises, on him. Leonard is surprised that he looks away first. 

“Ah, go ahead then.” Marshall instructs and Jim stands right in front of the holo, not to the side where most of the entrepreneurs start. 

Leonard almost shields his eyes, imagining what brightly colored font and presentation he’s in for with this one. 

But the first slide is blessedly devoid of graphics or font. Just lists James T. Kirk, cadet at Starfleet Academy and Magic Wheat (Working Title). 

“Did you know that there are over 1.3 million Federation citizens living on the edge of space on colonies that may or may not be facing poverty levels?”

No. 

“Did you know that it could take Federation and Starfleet aid services up to three to five days to reach any of the outlining colonies?”

Jim’s grin, turned into a straight pressed line as the statistics flashed up on the screen. 

“Did you know that often colonies are without proper protocol and early warning systems in case of crop failures?”

Jim’s finger clicking on the remote was the only warning before the images flashed up on screen. Emaciated children standing before a blazing field. 

The thirty odd people in the room had the same reaction, gasping, low murmuring, heads shifted to look away. 

Leonard could not look away. How could he shut out the iconic images he’d seen blasted out of holo vids and other media since he was sixteen and the newscast first reported the tragedy. 

“Did you know that these conditions have existed almost fifteen years after the Tarsus IV massacre?”

The next slide was the same calming blue and 30 point black font. “That’s the problem. Now the solution,” Jim said, making eye contact with Leonard and if he noticed Jim’s small nod, Leonard ignored it. Did he acknowledge that Leonard was the only one who didn’t look away? 

“What I propose is a genetically enhanced wheat that would be both a source of food but also a way to detect if the colony’s environment were to reject the growth…”

By the end of the ten minutes, it felt like longer somehow, Jim had finished early to a quiet and contemplative room (no one could have fallen asleep during that presentation). 

“Why not go to Starfleet for funding?” Leonard found himself asking. 

Jim shrugged. “Starfleet and I don’t agree on everything." 

Leonard raised his eyebrows and Jim grinned at him. That grin was going to cause him trouble he knew it. 

Two hours later and he somehow agrees to becoming business partners with the kid. He has no idea how that happens, how Jim nicknames him Bones or how he agrees a year later to move in with Jim to San Francisco because somehow business partners became best friends and then Jim’s introducing him to the Brass as his boyfriend and shut up Jim with a kiss when he asks if Bones got his money worth.


	12. Tornado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winona Kirk bursts into Starfleet Medical as if she’s a tornado on a Kansas plain, more like she belongs there. “My son.” She demands of the first uniform she sees. “Where?”

Winona Kirk bursts into Starfleet Medical as if she’s a tornado on a Kansas plain, more like she belongs there. “My son.” She demands of the first uniform she sees. “Where?”

The startled lieutenant, who was mostly in charge of organizing and triaging the ER waiting room, leads Winona to a small darkened space, labeled "Family Room." She catches a brief glimpse of herself in the reflection of the glass framing a pastoral picture-- pale, her hair loose in curls down her back, and she hasn’t had a lick of sleep since getting the comm aboard the Rochester. It took two ships and a hell of a lot of bribes to get her even close to Earth’s atmo, since Starfleet and the Federation have closed all transport until they could make sure Harrison was an isolated incident. 

She doesn’t realize she’s shaking until someone brings her a glass of water and she finds that the liquid tips over the side as she brings some to her mouth. 

It takes twenty-five minutes for another soul to enter the family room and by that time she knows that Jim is dead. 

No matter where, how or when, the Kirks have always immediately contacted each other during a crisis. They don’t have the luxury not too. 

When Leonard McCoy enters the room, looking ten times worse that she feels, she knows it’s true. 

To her credit, she does not break down. 

“Just tell me.”

Leonard lowers himself into the seat next to himself like a man three times his age. He has the darkest of circles under his eyes that make him look paler than he already is. His hands don’t shake like hers but it’s a near thing. 

“Our warp core was out of alignment. He went into the core and kicked it. That’s what they tell me.”

She closes her eyes. She tried all her life to make sure her youngest didn’t live in George’s shadow but he’s gone and followed in his father’s footsteps anyway. 

“So the radiation-”

Leonard nods. 

“It hurt, didn’t it?” The question shocks her. She is a Starfleet commander. She has seen death, looked it in the face and spit at it and yet she can’t push away the image of Jim in the radiation chamber, slowly fading away in a bout of agony. 

Leonard nods, his closed eyes letting one tear escape. It’s heartbreaking. She wonders if they said they loved each other before Jim died. Wonders if Leonard has any last words to hang onto like she did. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers hoarsely and his voice breaks. He gasps, fighting for air as his body shakes. “I am so damn sorry.”

She reaches forward to hug him because she needs it as much as he does. But she cannot cry. Her mouth is as dry as her eyes and her hands still shake as she smooths down the hair at the back of his neck. 

“Can I see him?”

Leonard, Bones, pulls away and she sees his face crumple quickly before setting into a pale shaken mask. “There’s something you should know.”

He leads her to a small room off another small room, locked away and contained. 

Jim, her baby (although she has no right to call him that now, does she?) is lying on a bed looking so still that she doesn’t believe what the doctor just told her. That Jim is alive, barely. That his cells are repairing due to Harrison’s blood. That Leonard and Spock and Dr. Boyce developed a serum to ensure Jim would live. 

She doesn’t make it to a chair before she collapses, her knees hitting the sterile, cold hospital floor before Leonard can prop her up. Her sobs are loud and hideous, echoing back to that horrible day, the day Jim was born. But Leonard is there, soothing her, promising her Jim will be okay. And that’s enough to help her breathe again.


	13. Some Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the tumblr prompt, "would you write something where leonard is with old friends from the academy and they start trash-talking jim and they ask leonard whatever happened to "kirk" and he says he married him and they're all kind of dumbfounded and sheepish?"

Most people don’t know this but Leo has friends outside of Jim and the Bridge Crew. 

There was a few guys he would go out with when he needed a break. When Jim was with Gaila, he would sneak off to a Bar with some of the older cadets and guys from SF Medical that he had gotten friendly with. 

He realizes now, just home from the clusterfuck that was the Narada mission, that friendly was relative. 

“God, do you remember that cadet, fuck, what’s his name? The one Jenny, the nurse called Sexy hair.” Erik Coleman, now a lieutenant on a surveying ship asks. They met in one of the few classes he and Jim didn’t have together. A boy from North Carolina, Leo had fallen into talks of the southern air and open fields. It was a nostalgia thing that drew them together.

Donny Curts, a SF Medical orderly barked out a laughter, nearly spraying bits of hsi shitty bar fries all over their booth. “Kirk, wasn’t it? The asshole that cheated his way into captaincy?”

“Hated that little shit.” Lou Reyes, a nurse that Chapel had dated during Leo’s time at the Academy.

“He was arrogant wasn’t he?” Coleman said, taking a large swig from his Budweiser Classic. 

Leo licked his lips, staring down into his own glass. Something old and familiar reared it’s head. Jim called it his protective streak. Bones called it self-preservation. 

“Ah sorry man, you knew him didn’t you? Served on the same ship or something?” Reyes asked. He must have seen the dark look that Leo had been glaring into the dregs of beer. 

He stood up and tossed a few bills on the table for his own drinks, made sure to show his left hand where Jim’s ring sat snug and comfortable. “Yeah, I’m just the asshole that married him.”

He stuck around for a moment to see their stunned faces before walking out. It was more satisfying than slugging any of them.


	14. Puppy Dog Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Bones can't withstand puppy dog eyes.

“Jo, darlin’. I love you. But no.”

His daughter pouts. “But look at his scrunchy face.” To illustrate she lifts the puppy closer to Bones’ face and yes, the dog does have wrinkles just between his eyes and under his jowls. 

“What am I going to do with a dog. Seriously.”

Jo’s face scrunches up just like the puppy. “Well, I figured, you know without Jim here…”

Bones’ stomach does the little drop it always does at the mention of his husband’s absence. Two months, he promised. It’s been six and Jim’s so far out in space that it takes a week and four other ships for their comms to bounce off of to reach one another. 

“And I’m moving out, so.”

She waves the puppy’s paws as if this is to explain the “so”. Is the “so” her way of worrying whether or not he’s supposed to be lonely? A puppy won’t exactly help with that. In fact, between the extra shifts he’s forcing SF Med to let him do, a dog might just frustrate him more. And no one wants to see Leonard McCoy more grumpy. 

He’s about to tell Jo this when the puppy yawns, whole jaw widening and face scrunching up more and he can’t help but think how Jim would fall over himself with how cute the dog was. Jim loved animals. Loves. Jesus christ, he’s not dead. 

“Just think of all the exercise you could get walking him.” Jo says. 

He almost snorts but holds it in. Five plus years running around after Jim Kirk is enough exercise for a lifetime. “He’s a daschund. They’re notoriously stubborn." 

He might not know much about most dogs but he knows this. His neighbor in Georgia had them and a day didn’t pass that they couldn’t hear Louise screaming after Pepper Jack.

Then he remembers that Jo is moving to Starfleet dorms and they don’t allow pets and her own dog that Joce had got her after the divorce had passed away a few years back. 

He scrubs a hand over his eyes and imagines writing to Jim. Got dog. Might succumb to too many puppy dog eyes. Send help. 

Jo nearly squeals when he takes the puppy from her and he’s rewarding with a swipe of the tongue over his chin. "Aw, hell.”

She giggles like she’s twelve and drags a bag of supplies from the porch. Ignoring his frown, she just shrugs. “I had a feeling.”

A week later and the puppy isn’t close to being house broken. He thinks it’s a bit pathetic that after the second time of yelling at the puppy for pissing on the wooden floorboards of the house, that he uses the same tone he does when he’s exasperated with Jim. And then it just slips out, when the puppy has gotten a hold of his slipper and is high tailing it out of the kitchen, Bones yells, “Jesus christ, Jim!”

And he spends the next ten minutes bracing himself against the kitchen counter because he can’t breathe. He’s laughing too much. He calls Jo to tell her and aches to call Jim. The puppy drops the half chewed slipper at his feet and cocks his head. 

“Your name sake would be proud.” Bones tells him.

By the time Jim comes home, Jim Jr. has gained three pounds and has stopped tugging his own leash when they go outside. And when they pick him up in the shuttle, JJ is securely strapped in his pet seatbelt, paws scraping the window as if he somehow knows. When they finally meet, Jim’s grin breaks out in the biggest dorky grin that Bones has ever seen on the man (and this was after Jim was a key note speaker at Space Con). 

“Welcome home,” Bones says, forehead touching his husband’s, puppy cradled to his chest. JJ’s snout and limbs wriggle until he’s face to face with his namesake. The dog yawns and Jim throws his head back to laugh.


	15. A Lot Longer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: From the promot: "Would you write a mckirk thing? where jim and bones are at a party for an ambassador and bones really hits it off with the ambassador, who's flirting up a storm with bones and asks him to go back to his quarters later. it really depresses jim after bones leaves and he excuses himself. he doesn't see bones until the next day and bones confronts him about being so emotionally flat and jim confesses he's been trying to win over bones' heart for years and the ambassador did it in an hour"

“I don’t like it.”

“Captain, there is nothing here for you to dislike." 

"Bones is supposed to be at my side, griping about the food or making sure I don’t have an allergic reaction.” Jim spots a waiter with a purple looking hors d'oeuver on it and gets an idea. Definitely something in that that’ll make his throat sieze.

“Captain,” Spock says, as if he can read his mind. “I do not think that is wise.”

Jim downs the rest of his champagne. “You’re probably right.”

But Bones has hit it off with Ambassador Llenga, a beautiful exotic woman with deep set purple eyes and almost sparking freckles. Jim didn’t know Bones was into it but apparently the Ambassador has charmed his CMO as Bones has laughed more in the last two hours than he ever did at all these past events combined during their five year mission so far. 

Jim sighs and then notices the the Ambassador and Bones are coming over and he takes a flute from a passing waiter much to Spock’s dismay. 

“Hey,” Jim says, trying to keep his hands relaxed at his side and his brain from making his mouth blurt out something inappropriate. _Don’t start another diplomatic incident just because you’re jealous, Kirk._

“We were thinking of heading out early. You okay here?” Bones asks, his eyes running over Jim in the way that he always does, like the mother hen that he is. 

“Fine. Have fun.” He nearly winces at how flat his tone is or how Bones looks a bit taken back but neither he nor the Ambassador say anything as they walk away, her beautiful green dress trailing after her as she touches Bones’ shoulder. 

He finishes the second champagne flute before leaving, not giving a damn how it looks. 

-

He’s only slightly hungover the next morning and uses this as an excuse to not answer Bones when he chimes in Jim’s quarters. 

“Fuck you,” Bones says when Jim mumbles something and at first Jim thinks he’s kidding but when he looks up into Bones face, there is no humor in his eyes. 

Bones is mad. Livid, even.

“What?” Jim demands, with a little more heat than intended, plopping down on the couch. 

“You going to tell me what that was about last night?”

Jim stares.

“Don’t be such an asshole. I actually find someone to spend time with and you act like a fucking Vulcan. You know I used to tell Uhura that you weren’t as emotionally constipated as you seemed, that there was some hope for you. But I was wrong.”

Jim’s brow furrowed. Where the fuck was any of this coming from? He tapped his fingers against his pajama clad knee and made a decision. 

“I was jealous.”

 _“What?”_ Bones asked, making a face Jim wished he had a camera to take a holo of. 

“I was jealous of you…and the Ambassador. I didn’t want to see you go off with her.”

“Because you wanted her? Christ Jim, you could have just said something.”

Jim let his head collapse into his hands and he groaned. “No. Because I want you, jackass.”

Silence. Here it goes. The end of an era. 

“For how long?”

Jim peeks up at Bones from between his fingers. “I don’t know. For a while now.”

Bones licks his lips. Nods. And then fucking laughs. Throws his head back and laughs and Jim is just done, because Bones saying something in anger? Stomping away? Slamming the door? That was a reaction he had considered? Laughter? No. 

But then Bones crosses the distance between them and kneels in front of Jim and picks Jim’s head up from where it is now useless against his hands. 

And then Bones leans forward and kisses him on the corner of the mouth. “I’ve been in love with you for longer.”


	16. On Loan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My grandfather, Tiberius, said once that people are really only loaned to us.”

“My grandfather, Tiberius, said once that people are really only loaned to us.” Jim said, his voice still scratchy after waking up four hours ago from a two week coma and death, places that Bones couldn’t follow. 

They lie together on Jim’s one-person biobed, as tangled together as they used to be back when they slept on similar beds in the academy.

Bones eyes are half-lidded, his body finally giving in to sleep after days of simulation shots and whatever caffeine he could find. Jim’s head is on his chest, his arm pushed up against Bones’ own arm; he is a warm presence that lulls him to sleep. Safe, alive, here. 

But the words make him jolt awake, like waking up from a dream (the one he’s had to often) of falling. 

He’s about to say something when Jim clears his throat, as softly as one can manage it and takes Bones’ hand. It’s clammy. Jim tightens his grip. 

“We may be on loan to each other but I don’t want live like it.” He turns just a few inches so that his mouth is inches from Bones’, his blue eyes lining up to meet hazel ones. 

“Will you marry me?”


	17. Let Me Tell You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones needs to tell Jim something like he needs to breathe.

“You busy tonight?” Bones nearly smacks himself in the face at the pathetic attempt to sound casual. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and tries not to look as embarrassed as he feels. 

They’re literally walking off the dock and into a flurry of press activity (mostly tabloids hoping to catch a glimpse of Jim). It’s the first time he’s really been able to talk to the kid. Jim’s been pretty much locked in his quarters since they left Nibiru and Bones has been locked in his head, planning this night. 

Jim’s grin is a slow simmering meal in his Nana’s crock pot. The crock pot he hoped to use tonight to make Jim the home cooked meal he desperately wanted (Bones, I need non-replicated food like I need to get laid. Don’t you?) 

Bones just wanted to confess how deeply, ridiculously, most likely fool-heartedly in love he was with his best friend. Finally. After five-years of keeping stupid silent.

“Probably go see the girls.” Jim slipped on his sun-glasses, waved a hand to the reporters and followed security through the crowd. 

Bones didn’t even want to ask who the girls were, did it even matter? before he too was ushered past the vultures and to his debrief. 

If he believed in such things, he might have left a piece of his heart at the dock, suspended between space and terra, liminal and forgotten. 

-

He decided to forgive Jim for his transgressions and planned something for the next night. Jim was a full, bright, red balloon, bouncing as he stopped by to grab something (kid was always forgetting pieces of himself somewhere, maybe like Bones’ forgot pieces of his heart). “A five-year mission! Dude. Do you know how cool that would be? Freedom. Just us and the black.”

He squeezed Bones’ arm then and his eyes were like the stars he imagined seeing on this so-called mission. Bones tried to be hopeful. Re-planned the meal. Figured the euphoria of a promotion couldn’t hurt his cause, right?

Jim never commed, never stopped by, never sent a message. The next he heard of his best friend was in the triage outside of what was once the Daystrom conference building. 

He pushed through the crowd, of admirals, captains, men and women bleeding and ashen, ignoring his instinct to help, to stop, so that he could find Jim. 

Jim was on the steps of the next building, shadowed by the collapsing beams of Daystrom, huddled and small. His complexion was the same as the grey officer suit he was required to wear. 

“Jim?” He whispered, approaching like he did the animals he rescued outside the farmhouse. 

The kid’s face crumpled and Bones wanted to crumple with him.

-

You can’t tell someone you love them in the middle of a inter-galatic man-hunt so Bones keeps his mouth shut. 

He has a panic attack worse than when his father was sick in his office. He almost dies on a rock with his hand stuck in a torpedo. He whispers, I’m sorry, I love you, a million times that day. The staff thinks he’s gone nuts. He can’t find it in himself to care. 

Nana always said that you could tell that something awful will happen if your beloved doesn’t say goodbye. He always thought that was a little general but Jim doesn’t say goodbye. 

Bones never gets the chance to either. 

As he stares down at Jim’s body bag, he doesn’t know what to do. 

He knows there are steps to take, responsibilities to carry out but he fucking…he can’t breathe. 

How could he never tell him? 

How could he never do something so fucking simple?

He stumbles toward a chair, wonders if anyone will just hypo him out of this or if he’ll have to do it himself when the sweetest sound he’s ever fucking heard startles him from trying to become invisible. 

The tribble purrs. 

He’s on autopilot. He wonders if Jim will know how much he loves him when he wakes up. _If_ he wakes up. _When._

-

His favorite place in the world, the only place that matters is in the most fucking uncomfortable hospital chair, hand curled around Jim in the two weeks that it takes for him to wake up. 

When he does and Bones checks him out (three times, with Boyce there for good measure and a fleet of nurses and other doctors too), he takes Jim’s hand again. 

“Bones-” Jim licks his lips. A swipe of the bottom, the top. Bones melts. 

Bones holds up his other hand. “Hold on.”

He takes a deep breath. Recalls all the pieces of his heart that he’d left behind. “I really have to tell you something.”


	18. Six Smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim has six smiles.

Winona Kirk was not what he was expecting. She has the same wheat colored hair as her son but that where her similarities to Jim ended, in physicality. In temperament, she was different immediately. She made Jim go clean his room for Bones and make sure he had enough towels and blankets, while she set about making some tea. 

The farmhouse was an eclectic mix of generations. An old telephone still hung next to the refrigerator, it’s cord hanging useless. The furniture ranged from early 2000s to present and the pictures were mostly of the boys, though there was a fading wedding picture of a couple that Bones figured must have been George Kirk’s parents. 

Winona gestured to the table and he sat, unsure of what to do with his limbs in this quiet house. 

“Thank you, Doctor McCoy, for bringing him back.”

This also, was not what he was expecting. 

“If anyone could bring himself back from the black, Mrs. Kirk, it’s Jim.”

She turned from the stove and fixed him with a world weary gaze one must have acquired from raising Jim Kirk. “We both know that everyone has a reason for going up to space. Jim wanted to make his daddy proud. Not sure anyone could come back from that.”

Bones swallows. It’s the truth, of course. Bones wouldn’t have been surprised if he had died up there, it just would have been earlier than he thought. 

“Do you love him?” She asked. He could see she got her directness from dealing with admirals and men who had tried to push her and the memory of her dead husband into a reverent hiding space, only to be brought out on Remembrance Days. 

“Yes.”

She sets two cups on different adjacent placemats. “Why?“ 

He doesn't have the words. Winona smiles around her mug of tea. 

“I’m a mother. And Jim is my youngest. I also don’t know much about you, Doctor, besides Jim’s infrequent comms. I know you would save my son and that’s almost enough. But you can save a person’s body all you want but that doesn’t mean you can save his heart.”

An image of Jim surfaces in his mind. He is on the lawn on a warm San Francisco day just a month before the Narada, head pillowed by a rolled up sweatshirt and book held above his face. Bones approaches from the direction of Starfleet medical and Jim sits up and just  _smiles._

 _“_ Do you know he has six smiles? One when something really makes him laugh. One when he’s making plans.” And god help Bones with that, he can imagine that wicked grin or calculating smile as everything falls into place. “One when he’s laughing out of politeness, usually to some brass at the academy.”

He sighs. “One when he is uncomfortable. One when he is making fun of himself, which is often by the way. And one when he is talking to his friends" 

Their friends, the Bridge Crew, and the shared moments after the Narada press tour and the tiring debriefings. 

"I know his smiles, Mrs. Kirk, because I love him."

And Winona nods, reaches out to give his hand a tight squeeze before Jim clomps into the room,complaining about dust bunnies, nose running and face scrunched up in a sneeze. And that's it. That's all it takes. 


	19. The Proposal Story

"You’re fucking out of your mind.”

“I am! Seriously? You get your head slammed against things on a daily basis, kid. You’re suffering from all those concussions." 

"And you’re the one who fixed me up so are you doubting your own skills, Doctor McCoy?”

“No Captain, of course not. Lord knows you hit your head way more before we even met.”

“You’re an ignoramus, Bones, you know that?”

“Fuck you for using fucking big words when I’m drunk.”

If Jim and Bones weren’t too busy arguing, basically spitting at each other in the small booth at The Tavern–a hole in the wall far away from Starfleet that the crew escaped from the paparazzi to–they would have noticed the crew on the other side, all wearing identical amused expressions and raised eyebrows. It would have been adorable to take a picture of their matching faces and used it as the Enterprise’s holiday card, Jim’s big on that shit. 

“How’d this start?” Carol asks, tossing some chex mix in her mouth as she squeezes into the booth. 

“Chekov innocently asked who fell for the other first.”

This was the unofficial engagement party. Jim and Bones hadn’t announced they were getting married…in fact, Bones hadn’t proposed but Jim found the ring while looking for extra underwear (who the fuck goes through as much underwear as you, kid, jesus christ) and the whole crew knows that Jim knows but Jim doesn’t know that they know and Bones doesn’t know that the crew knows that Jim knows. It’s a fucking mess. So they’re celebrating. Sort of. 

Bones will propose tomorrow, in the morning, when they’re both just a bit hungover and have really nasty breath but kiss each other sweetly anyway. Bones will roll over and grab the ring and tell Jim that he fell for Jim first and Jim will argue that Jim fell for Bones first, until they nearly on top of each other and the only way to shut the other up is to just kiss. 

And then Bones will propose. 

And Jim will say, of course, you idiot.


	20. Collection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim collects books.

Jim collects old paper books. Tiberius gave him a few before he died. One or two belonged to his dad. He kept them under his bed in an old shoebox. Every once in a while he would pull one out and smell it, musty and smelling a little of Tiberius’ house. He would think of his father opening the pages, squinting at the small print, running his hands over the stiff spines. 

His favorite copy is _To Kill A Mockingbird_ , a book he took with him to Tarsus (he was only allowed one bag of belongings) and that burned in the fire that took out most of the colonists lodgings. 

He never tells anyone about it but Bones surprises him with a copy of Harper Lee’s classic for his twenty-eighth birthday (a day Jim thought he would just forget about until it was over). Bones hides a grin as he takes a pull from a beer as he watches Jim stare down at perfectly intact cover, a hard and lovely find. Jim bites his lip as he runs his hands over the copy. It’s beautiful, solid, his. 

They’ve just started whatever it is they’re doing at that point so the kiss starts off tentative and sweet. And then Bones mouth widens around his and Jim places the book down with one hand and wraps his arm around Bones neck, pulling him in and down so that they’re undressing each other hungrily on the floor of Jim’s quarters. 

“Took you long enough to get me in my birthday suit,” Jim breathes into Bones ear as they lay down on the floor. 

Bones chuckles, a low and deep sound that causes small vibrations. 

“Thank you, Bones.”

“No problem, kid.”


	21. Darlin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darlin' is a universal constant.

_Darlin’_ is a universal constant. 

When the Enterprise encounters an ion storm, or a transporter malfunction, or weird mojo on a planet with no name that leads them to another world, Bones still calls Jim Darlin’ _._ _  
_

Even when they were space pirates or school teachers in Georgia, or when Bones was the Captain and Jim his bighearted-fool of a CMO, Bones always said Darlin’ with the same cadence, the word carrying the weight of something warm and fierce and protective.

“Fucking sappy,” Mirrorverse Jim, his curved barbell eyebrow piercing rising as he lifted one eyebrow. He pointed his phaser at the away team until Mirrorverse Scotty could work the transporter to get them home. 

“It’s good to see you again, darlin’” A world-weary Bones whispered on a subdued Enterprise. Spock was the captain and Jim didn’t have the heart to ask what had happened to his counterpart. Some stories weren’t meant to be shared. 

“For now, for forever and for always, darlin’” They overhear Bones say to the very female version of himself as they get married on some beach in Georgia. 

Jim reaches for Bones hand to squeeze as he feels the pull as their Enterprise finally beams them up. 

He’s been to a lot of worlds and he’s seen a lot of things. No matter how many analogs he has, no matter how unsettling they make him or how much he wonders about what could have been, he loves the way his Bones says darlin’ and wouldn’t trade it for the world. 


	22. More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bar Crawl time.

The Crew getting really drunk at a Starfleet bar crawl. In between bar five and six, and a lot of dollar wells later, Jim and Bones get split up. 

Bones had his hand in a vice grip and his other arm around Jim's waist (mostly because he’s afraid he’ll lose the kid to the adoring admirers crowding the bars and no one wants a repeat of that time second year at the Academy…) when a bunch of cadets push through them, breaking the connection. 

“Fuckkk, Jim!” Bones shouts but that might as well be the same of trying to speak underwater for all that his words are garbled and swallowed up by the crowd. 

Jim turns back, wide eyed as the sea of young Starfleet officers block him from Bones’ vision. He shouts but he might as well be mouthing words.

A few minutes later and Jim finds himself outside of the next stop on the tour with Scotty, Keenser, Chekov and Uhura. 

The rest, of course, are still at the fifth bar. 

“We should definitely go back. It’s only illogical that they stay there.” Uhura says chugging a water bottle with one hand and fanning herself with the other. 

“No. No. It’s logical that we go to the next bar. They’re the illogical ones.” Jim tells her, shaking his head back and forth so hard that he’s sure teeth dislodge. Can teeth do that? That’s bad. He should call Bones.

And so he does. There’s a lot of noise at the end of the comm but Jim manages to convey, mostly in hand gestures, where they are. 

“Okay. You stay there. Don’t get drunker without me.” Bones tells him. “Love you.”

Chekov burps in the background and Jim grins into the comm. “Aw, Bonesie. I love you more.”

“No, I love you more.”

“Shut up, Bones. I love you more. I’m captain.”

“And I get to override your stupid ass decisions because I’m CMO. I love you more.”

“AND I LOVE YOU ALL MORE,” Sulu shouts before taking Bones comm from him and tossing it behind him. 

This incident was not spoken of again. Unless the words “love” and “more” came up and then the crew would recount it with much enthusiasm.


	23. Trace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a night that doesn’t even matter, shadowing a day where nothing happened.

It’s a night that doesn’t even matter, shadowing a day where nothing happened. 

There was no close calls, no conspiracies uncovered, no destruction to be had. 

It’s not even what Bones would call a perfect day. 

They settle into bed, maybe the first time in weeks that they're able to both just collapse in the Captain’s quarters. 

Jim starts snoring immediately and Bones’ eyelids are heavy and his body sinks down into the bed. 

His fingers–always steady, always sure, always ready–find the back of Jim’s grey Starfleet Academy t-shirt, faded with age and use, move as if on their own. Half asleep, dreams beckoning him into unconscious, he begins an artful trace–a masterpiece–on Jim’s back. it’s not unlike those months after the Khan, when he’d wake up frozen from a nightmare, expecting to be in a cramped radiation chamber with Jim and his hands sought Jim’s out or when his best friend turned lover turned boyfriend turned whatever, would wake up from a nightmare and Bones would rub circles into his back, across his shoulder blades, into his neck and they’d fall asleep like that. 

Muscle memory takes over and his fingers trace the oldest words, the only words that seem like too much and not enough at once. 

I 

Love 

You

Jim shifts. 

Turns around and catches Bones on the side of the mouth, stubble scraping against his jaw. 

“Love you too.”

And that’s all that matters.


	24. Xenopolycythemia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones discovers he has Xenopolycythemia one year after he and Jim get married.

Bones discovers he has Xenopolycythemia one year after he and Jim get married. Jo is ten. M'Benga and Chapel call Jim into Starfleet medical where Bones is ashen faced and quiet, too quiet. 

“No no no no no.” Jim says brokenly, which startles Bones into action. He kisses Jim’s temple, his cheek, the side of his mouth, as if Jim is the one who just found out he has less than a year to live. 

Jo doesn’t take it much better. 

“You better fix him, Jim.” She tells him in the hallway, her eyes are hard and her fists are clenched. For the past year she's called him dad. It made him feel shaky and warm all over. Now he just feels cold. “You better fix him like he fixed you.”

She doesn’t talk to him after that.

For the next few weeks Jim calls in every favor he’s owed. Wheedles new favors from old friends and some enemies and learns everything he can about the deadly blood disease. 

He can’t look Jo, or Bones, in the eye--whose eyes are mostly closed anyone as he deteriorates faster than anyone could have imagined--until he figures this out. Until he saves Bones. Because without Bones, who is he?

Bones is on a bed in medbay when Old Spock contacts him. Jo is a constant presence at his bedside, making up a fort between the two visiting chairs. Jim is not welcome until he finds a cure.)

Jim is just about to beg for forgiveness, to sit on his knees and put his head on the bed and grieve when his comm beeps. 

“I am sorry for delaying this for so long, old friend.” Ambassador Spock tells him, the Vulcan’s policy of not interfering apparently having another exception. He walks into Starfleet Medical with a cure before Jim even has the chance to reply. He finds the nearest bathroom and promptly throws up, dry heaving mostly because there is nothing at all in his stomach. 

He is raw and broken when he begs a cigarette off of an expecting father outside of Medical. His hands shake and he inhales, exhales, knowing the shit he’d get from Bones if he ever found out. 

“It will be okay.” Old Spock tells him, appearing out of nowhere just like his younger counterpart has a penchant for doing and nearly making Jim drop the cigarette. 

He stamps it out at Spock’s raised eyebrow and swallows the taste of smoke. “Thank you.”

Joanna finds him as soon as he makes his way back up to Bones’ room, running at him at full force and knocking the breath out of Jim as her head collides with his stomach. “I’m so sorry, dad. I was so scared. I’m sorry. I was afraid to lose him and you. I’m so sorry.”

They both cling to each other, Jim sucking in breath and snot and tears, and gently rubbing Jo’s back as she exhausts herself, collapsing into Jim. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He tells her and kisses the top of her head and eventually she tires herself out so he carries her back to her fort in Bones room and kisses his husband’s forehead, feeling like he can breathe again for the first time in months.


	25. Shell-Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I imagine that a lot of the Fleet were shell-shocked after the Narada.

I imagine that a lot of the Fleet were shell-shocked after the Narada. 

And I think down the line–from the Lieutenant Commanders to the Admirals to the baby cadets who were so green they still carried PADDS with Ship terms on it–everyone suffered. And mostly, silently. 

I think that most people didn’t know how to handle it. They had been taught how to cope with chaos, how to withstand torture, how to refuse to negotiate with terrorists and yet-

No one had prepared them for watching half the Fleet go up with flames. To lose their friends, their family, their colleagues with a blast of red matter and a volley of enemy fire. 

The Fleet sinks into nightmares and panic attacks and it does so with a silent scream. 

Jim’s used to anxiety. To feeling the weight of something nameless and raw and terrifying. And he’s used to be silent about it. 

Until now. 

“Fuck this,” he mutters before walking on stage. He was supposed to introduce a speaker–a grief counselor or something? when he gets a look at the pale faces out in the crowd, each still caught in their own day terror. 

“Hey guys. I just wanted to let you know that what happened out there?” He gestures up because he needs something to do with his hands. “Is fucked up. And it fucked me up.” He laughs but it hurts his throat. “More so than usual, I guess and a wise doctor told me that that’s okay. And I’m here to tell you that whatever you’re going through? Is okay too.”

He notices a young cadet take off his cap to hide his face. Another cadet is gripping the back of a chair so hard that he swears he can hear the plastic give. 

“It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to rethink your options. You’re not a coward. You’re not a failure. And fuck anyone for thinking that. You have to be kind to yourself. Because we learned recently that that’s not everyone will be.”

He catches a glimpse of Bones off to the side with his arms pretzeled against his chest. He nods when he spots that Jim has noticed him and Jim knows that even if he’s not okay now. He might be. He can be. 

He takes another breath. “Find someone now who needs you. Find someone you need. Be there for each other. You might not be okay now but you’ll get there.”


	26. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars

On the unnamed planet with the violet skies and fields full of red wheat grass, the inhabitants give them an ultimatum. 

They were going to kill Jim. No matter what. They read intentions like some races read auras and they knew Jim always intended to die for his crew--for Bones. They knew that he would accept the punishment that fell on the group as a whole for entering their territory (most trespassers to their planet did not get a choice).

The only question was: would Captain's survivors choose to remember him or choose to forget?

It was supposed to be a consolation--a kindness. 

The inhabitants had some sort of ritual. Part serum, part technology, the rumors of it's strength was carried across lightyears never to be truly confirmed. The "trial" as they called it had been developed and passed down for generations to ward off invasions of this type. It could easily alter your memories make you forget that you'd ever heard of their small violet and red planet. 

Any painful reminder of what you left behind would be erased as if it had never been there. 

All they asked for from the entire crew, really, was Jim’s life. 

Leo fought. He fought and screamed, kicking and punching as they dragged him away from the ceremonial hall they had thought the services--Jim's death--would be held in. Two days and the people had given no indication of their plans. 

“It’s okay, Bones.” Jim said, giving him a quick smile as Leo was literally ripped from his side. He had been screaming into the transporter to get them the fuck out of there, grabbing onto Jim like a lifeline as the guards swept in. 

Spock went down as some projectile hit him in the back of the neck, Uhura slumped on top of him not soon after. 

“You fuckers, you get away from me. Jim! Don’t you let them do this. You don’t touch him, you hear me!” He spit and yelled as they dragged him away, he had been jabbed with something in the ensuing fight and felt everything get heavy. But god did he fight. “JIM!”

Later that night the leader came to tell him it was done and that the choice was to choose. 

Leo shook in his small stone cell, shoving his hands into his mouth and rocking. “No no no no.”

He had to pull it together. He had to get to Jim. Jim. And to Spock and Uhura and to the Enterprise. 

“Sometimes, we let the dying make the choices for the living.” The leader told him and Leo closed his eyes, rage making everything feel numb. 

He doesn’t remember what happened next. How could he? There’s nothing to remember. 

Leo McCoy wakes up in a small shoebox apartment outside of Atlanta. All he knows is a divorce and a failed attempt to join Starfleet. 

He feels empty but figures he’s supposed to. He deserves it. 

When the Vulcan comes knocking on his door. Leo punches him in the face. He has no idea why. 

“Dr. McCoy. I know this might be a strange inquiry..." The Vulcan trails off as his mouth moves open and closed like a fish stuck in a corner of a small fish tank. 

"It is very important that I ask you this.” The Vulcan, Spock, says as he holds ice to his rapidly bruising jaw. Leo wonders where he learned how to throw such a good punch. 

“Ask me what?” He slumps in the threadbare chair that makes up the three pieces of furniture in his living room. 

“Are you in distress?”

He thinks of the words he repeats every morning, heard somewhere from a song on the old radio he keeps in the kitchen. Live through this and you won’t look back.

“That’s none of your damn business.” He thinks about pouring himself a drink but it’s barely 2 in the afternoon and he needs to start looking into jobs at local hospitals or clinics. Anything to get himself moving and out of this apartment. 

“Excuse me but I have a feeling that is not true.” The Vulcan tells him with a tilt of his head that God help him looks familiar. 

The door opens then and in walks a tall, beautiful woman with a high ponytail and a grim expression. “Time’s up. Your way didn’t work." The woman tells the Vulcan and fixes her gaze on Leonard. 

"Get up, Len. We need to go save Jim. Again.”

The Vulcan looks as confused as Leonard himself, which is more disconcerting than it probably should be. 

The woman glares before stomping out of the door, dragging the Vulcan by his tunic into the gloomy Atlanta afternoon. Leonard's head begins to pound as he squints at the retreating figures who left him behind. 

“Who the fuck is Jim?”


	27. Constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim loves Bones' freckles.

“A bit like the little dipper, right?” Jim says and presses a kiss to the small grouping of freckles on Bones’ left shoulder. 

Bones hums, not pausing carding his hands through Jim’s hair. It started as the pretense for checking for any hidden contusions on his scalp-damn fool got knocked around, again-but Jim’s pent up energy settled as soon as Bones began, leaving them curled together on the soft comforter in their quarters. It’s soothing for both of them, in a way. 

Jim slowly traces another set of freckles, the pads of his fingers leaving trails of warmth as he goes. 

“Always thought that one looked like Orion.” Bones tells him. 

Jim snorts. “You wish.” But he presses another kiss, causing more goosebumps to spread over Bones body. He let’s his hand travel to the base of Jim neck and he massages lightly. 

“Hmmm.” Jim says and pauses in his freckle hunt. 

Jim loves Bones freckles. Takes the time to search them out, especially after they’ve been on a planet with sun. Like Jim’s, Bones freckles pop with just a little bit of sunlight, no matter how far they are aware to their own home sun. 

Jim disentangles himself from Bones hands, although it probably pains him to do so, and inches himself down to Bones lower half. “Got any down there?”

Bones rolls his eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”


	28. JT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something weird is going on in engineering.

“Ah, Doctor McCoy?”

Bones closes his eyes as he finishes typing the last two words of the incident report into the computer. He had ten minutes. Ten more minutes on shift. 

“Did you blow someone up in Engineering, Scotty? Because M'Benga’s going to have to take care of that. I’m off duty.”

“Well, you see…no one blew up. It’s jus’ that. We’ve got wee ones in Engineering, Len.”

Bones saves the report and grabs the comm. “Wee ones?”

“Children.”

“Oh for the love of god, hold on.”

It doesn’t take him long to get to Engineering. Sickbay is centrally located so that staff can get to any part of the ship in under five minutes. (This fact always makes a pit form in Bones’ stomach when he thinks how fast he could have been there for Jim after he walked into the warp core. But that isn't something he can afford to dwell on for too long.)

He arrives to see three children running around engineering, weaving in between tubes, caught up in what looks like an elaborate game of tag. 

“Kevin’s it! Kevin’s it!” A curly haired girl says, doing more bouncing than running. 

The little boy, Kevin, doesn’t notice when Bones steps into the open area, running smack into Bones’ stomach. 

“You okay, kiddo?”

Kevin takes a step back. “Um.”

“Hey!” Another voice joins them and suddenly a blonde haired boy is marching into view, a phaser pointed at Scotty, who is walking backwards with his hands up. A little blonde girl cowers behind them both. 

“You okay, Kev?”

“Yeah, JT.”

JT. 

Bones nearly chokes. “Jim?” Blonde haired, blue eyed, and more freckled than Bones has ever seen him, the kid whips his head to face Bones, his phaser traveling as his gaze shifts. 

“Who’re you?”

“A friend. I’m Leonard McCoy, a doctor on this ship.”

“And what ship is that?” Jim licks his lips and Bones allows himself a quick once over. The kid is thin, his lips are cracked and his skin looks sunburnt. The only people to call Jim JT were a small group of kids he looked after on…

“Fuck.” 

“You said a bad word!” The curly haired girl giggles and points a too skinny finger at Bones.

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that, sweetheart. This is the USS Enterprise, Jim.”

Jim flicks his eyes back to Scotty and then back to Bones. “How’d we get here?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Jim refuses to meet Bones' eyes.

“We were running from Kodos’ guards. Jim said it was a big game of hide and seek!” The curly haired girl says. 

“Leah,” Kevin says and gathers the girl up in his arms. The little girl and the others look better than Jim and Bones’ heart clenches. He knows what Jim did for them on that planet. 

“Tarsus?” Scotty asks. 

The phaser is aimed back on Scotty in a second. 

“Why don’t you calm down, Jim. You’re safe, we promise.”

“Don’t know that.”

“Look into my eyes, kiddo. You can trust us.“ 

Jim has a particular super power in reading people. Always has. The fact that he lowers the gun and tucks it into his back pocket, confirms it. 

Scotty rubs at the back of his neck as he backs up to Bones. 

"You comm Jim before comming me?” He whispers. 

“That’s the thing, Len. Jim was talking to me two minutes before the little ones showed up. He disappeared.”

Bones looks over at Jim, where he’s crouched in front of the kids, having gathered them up for a chat. He can barely hear what he’s saying but he’s whispering gently, reaching out to ruffle a redheaded boy’s hair. 

“Let’s go bring them up to Sickbay to check them out. You call Spock and have him meet me outside. Tell him to comm me when he gets there.”

Scotty nods. “Jim. Do ya think the lad turned into this version or something else happened?”

Bones watched as Jim picked up the small blonde girl who had cowered behind him before. He hoped to god that this wasn’t some kind of switch. 

“And you don’t think they’ll go back there, do you? To that godforsaken planet? When this is done?”

He swallowed hard, his stomach roiling at the thought. He had no words, just a horrible feeling that was spreading and a need to get to Sickbay to do something useful. He sent out a silent prayer that Jim was alright and that this Jim and the children would be too.


	29. Daddy Jim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the lovely doctorenterprise who gave me this wonderful and adorable idea.

Jim knows that Bones loves him. Bones told him once that Jim saved him and he knows that it goes both ways. 

But if this weekend with Jo doesn’t go well, he’s fucked. 

He bit his nails off on the shuttle over to Georgia, even though it was Bones who usually white-knuckles the trip. 

Bones presses a kiss under his ear as they unbuckle. “It’ll be fine. She loves you.”

He huffs and shakes off the unease. He remembers the first time he met Frank. He was younger than Jo but old enough to know how wrong and out of place this other person was. It didn’t help that the first time Jim met him, Frank had locked him out of the house because he was a few minutes late from playing in the barn for dinner. 

Point was, Jo had formed her opinions of him and he only had a long weekend to change that. 

It was day three that Bones left the two of them alone. Things were going good. They’d went to the summer county fair and Jim had won her the biggest teddy bear he could find in a laser shooting contest. They’d gone on the ferris wheel and roller coaster, which delighted Jo because Bones never took her on rides with heights and Jocelyn disapproved of carnivals. 

So when Bones suggested he’d take the day to run errands, see his mom, Jim figured he’d be okay with the munchkin. 

She was the quiet the whole day. 

He was worried she was sick and when she said she was not, there was no coaxing conversation out of her. She just followed him to the movies, the arcade, even the bookstore. He was running out of ideas and when he asked her she would just blink and shrug at him shyly. 

That night at dinner he made the decision to go home a few days early. He knew Bones deserved the time with his kid and Jo needed the alone time with Bones. 

That night he packs as Bones sets up the game night they had planned. He figures he can slip out late tonight, tell Bones something came up and explain later. As he’s folding his shorts into the regulation Starfleet duffle, Joanna pokes her head in. 

“Jim, are you coming? Daddy says we can’t gain up on him in trivial pursuit but I know that if I made my puppy face we can get him to play.”

He shoves the bag behind him but Jo is her father’s daughter and doesn’t miss a thing. 

“Are you leaving?” She asks and walks in, her face scrunched up in confusion. 

“Might head out a few days earlier. Give you some alone time with your dad.”

Her mouth forms a perfect O, her eyebrows gathering close together. She’s still and then her lips pucker. “You don’t want to stay?”

He frowns. “Of course I do, kiddo, I just-”

“You don’t like it with us?”

“No! Not at all?”

“Then what is it?” She crosses her arms suddenly in an all-to-adult move. 

“I-” He blows out his breath. “It’s…”

“Don’t you love me, daddy Jim?”

This time it’s his face that scrunches up. “I do, Jo Jo. And well, I’m not your daddy but-”

Her face changes altogether, mischief dancing in her light brown eyes and she grins. “You’re kind of dumb. I was thinking about it yesterday. You make daddy happy. People who make each other happy like you and daddy should get married. And I know you love each other.”

He swallows and looks down at his hands. 

“Daddy won’t ask you yet but you should definitely think about it. Mommy got married to Clay a year ago and he’s alright.”

Jesus, this was unexpected. 

“Ah, thanks, sweetheart.”

She bounces forward to hug him quickly before turning around and heading out the door again. “Now, hurry up, we have a game to beat.”

He shakes his head, trying to fight the giddiness bubbling up.  _Daddy Jim, christ._


	30. Teddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones surprises Jim with something from his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feel-good fluffy video is worth watching: http://laughingsquid.com/man-restores-his-fiancees-beloved-childhood-teddy-bear-for-christmas/

He doesn’t know where Teddy came from. His mother once said that Teddy was given to him in Starfleet Medical after the shuttle was picked up by a larger rescue ship. He was only in the hospital for a week when Winona took him home with her to Iowa, but one of the nurses have given him a soft furred brown and white muzzle teddy bear with a red bow around it. 

For the next seven years of Jim’s life, Teddy would go everywhere with him. To bed, to the breakfast table, even out in the fields to run around. When Sam wasn’t playing with him, it was Teddy who was there because lord knew Winona was often too busy to play. 

A year before Tarsus, Jim loses Teddy on a bus. It’s his first of many escape attempts from Iowa and the chance of running away seems so awesome that when he gets hauled off the bus by Frank, he forgets his backpack because he’s shocked that he failed. He just wanted to leave for a while, needed to leave for a while, doesn’t anyone understand that?

He tells Bones about this one summer night in bed. They’re lying in Bones’ childhood bedroom in Georgia, all warm and comfortable and Bones is kissing his shoulder when the memory pops into his head. And then he forgets about it. 

It isn’t until Christmas that year that the subject is brought up again. 

“Here you go, darlin’” Bones says and passes him a box. It’s a big box and Jim grins. 

“It’s a very nice box, Bones. You totally didn’t have to." 

Bones rolls his eyes and sits back, his voice suddenly going gruff. "Just wanted to let you know that I love you, more than anything. And that probably nothing will ever take my place but…this.”

Jim looks down at the box, turns it over in his hands, shakes it just a bit. He licks his lips. “Now I’m nervous.”

Bones’ lip quirks. “Don’t be. Just open it.”

And so he does, ripping at the paper like the five-year-old inside him desperately wants to do. It’s a box holding old Medbay supplies. Jim looks up at his fianc _é_ with a raised eyebrow but Bones just gestures for him to go further. 

So he opens it, reaches inside the wrapping paper and pulls out a soft furred, brown and white muzzle teddy bear with the same red bow that he used to curl around his finger and tug. He brings the bear up to his eyes and sniffs and he  _knows._

 _“_ Holy shit, Bones.”

The other man is beaming. 

“This is…"He’s at a  loss for words. "He smells the same. How did you…”

Bones comes over and kisses him on the forehead. “Merry Christmas, Jim.”

“Thank you, Bones. Thank you so much.” And he gets up and hugs his almost-husband, still holding the teddy bear in his hand and imagining that he feels just a tiny bit more whole.


	31. Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forever looks a lot like the Enterprise.

Forever looks a lot like The Enterprise. 

Or the fields he used to roam as a kid until dusk in Iowa. 

They tell him after he dies that your mind picks the most comforting of images as Heaven, Eternity. 

It’s hard to be comforted when you’re alone, though. 

People populate both places, people he sort of recognizes like in a dream, but they don’t stay with him. He knows that Pike and his dad can appear at any moment but he loses his nerve to seek them out. 

 _You’re dead, dumbass. What nerve can you lose?_ A voice in his head, which sounds a lot like Bones says. 

_Bones._

Bones, who growled at him to stay awake in Jim’s last memory. “Don’t you dare do this, you bastard. Not now."

True, it was awful timing. His wedding ring, the one Bones had slipped on his finger just two weeks ago, was growing heavy. Just like everything else. He felt pinned down. 

“‘Ones." 

"Please Jim,” Bones voice caught as he closed his eyes, his hands still pressing into Jim’s stomach where the blood still wouldn’t stop. 

_“Sorry.”_

It was bound to be the last word he said. 

And then he opened his eyes and found himself sprawled out, arms and legs akimbo on the floor of the Bridge. His Grandfather Tiberius was standing over him, his arms crossed. “Wish you held out a little longer, kid.”

He explained everything. How he’d stay here, roaming, free to find loved ones who had passed on. But Jim was stuck. Lonely. He couldn’t face Pike or his dad or any of the number of people he had lost over the years. 

Every memory, good or bad, played on blades of grass in the field in Iowa or on the shiny surfaces of the Enterprise. His last one haunted the blackness behind his eyes. 

He left Bones alone. 

Most of the time, if time was a thing that occurred here, he sat in the Captain Chair or in Bones office in med bay, drinking from the endless tumbler of whiskey Bones kept hidden in a medicine cabinet. Too afraid to leave, too afraid to face anyone outside. 

_“Jim?”_

His eyes snapped open, sure he was just hearing Bones voice from a memory. But no, Bones was there. Standing in front of him. Looking the same he did on the day they left for the away mission, the day Jim died. Jim let his eyes drink every part of him. The broad shoulders, the soft brown eyes, the gold wedding band on his finger. 

He is out of the chair and meeting Bones halfway, face inches from Bones own. “How?”

“I’m so sorry. I wanted to be here sooner. But they wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t fight them. I-”

“Shh. Bones. I wanted you to live. I didn’t want you to die. I’m sorry for leaving you. I never wanted to leave you." 

Jim buries his face in Bones neck. He laughs a little. He husband of two weeks smells like he always as. 

They kiss, slow and gentle, as if they have eternity to do it. 

Of course, the great thing is, that they do. 

Jim breaks apart first and laces his hands with Bones. "Hey, you want to go see our dads?”


	32. The Final Frontier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Band AU

There were only four people who knew why The Final Frontier, a folk-y band with pop rock crossover, broke up five-years-ago. The gossip rags speculated that it was due to Leonard McCoy’s gruff nature and how happy-go-lucky Jim Kirk couldn’t possibly stand to be around  _that_ for too long. 

Fans who couldn’t leave well enough alone thought that it had something to do with Bones’ (as Jim called him, so did they) rocky relationship with his then wife, Jocelyn Darnell. 

Neither group knew that Bones walked away from Jim the night of their Grammy Award win after Jim told Bones he was in love with him.

And they hadn’t talked for five years. 

Until Jim won the Grammy again for his solo career and walked out of the theatre and hailed a taxi that took him to Bones apartment.

He knocked loudly on the door to the shittiest apartment he’s seen since him and Bones moved from San Francisco after college. His scruffy faced, dark circled ex-bandmate stared at him in shock and then smiled. “Dammit Jim.”

Jim strode over to the table and slammed the statue on the table. “That’s yours.”

“What?”

“I wrote most of these songs with your dumbass in mind. So that’s yours. Now what did you want? Your agent called my agent about ten times today.”

Bones swallowed. “Ah, do you want to sit down or do you want a drink?”

Jim’s mouth twisted. “I think you’ve been drinking enough for the two of us.”

Bones looked down. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

Bones closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I was wondering. I was hoping…”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t even heard what I had to say.”

“I may hate you right now. But I was in love with you before that. So yes. Whatever it is.”

Bones felt the emotion of the last few days, of Jocelyn’s divorce papers finally coming through, of the custody agreement, of watching their old tour videos, flood him. He pulled Jim into a hug. 

Two days later and they were sitting at their record label with a concert manager trying to plan out the Final Frontier’s reunion tour. Jim wouldn’t look much at Bones but Bones was okay with that. He had six weeks on their tour to make it up to him. 


	33. Mise en place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "prompt: jim cooking for bones for the first time and hes really nervous because bones is a really great cook but it turns out just as good"

Jim knows how to cook. He’s done it plenty of times, learning in his drafty kitchen in the empty Iowa farmhouse as soon as he could reach the counter. He got good at it too. Had too. His allergies often made it difficult for anything to taste good and that required improvisation. 

When he realized how much Bones likes a home cooked meal, how much he likes mixing ingredients and letting spices sizzle in a pan, or how much he liked baking and sharing a meal, he knew he had to cook for Bones. 

So he plans. And plans. And reads every goddamn recipe on his PADD. Sets everything up. Just. So. 

He comms Bones to clear his night, making sure Chapel has his shift covered, and Spock knows only to get him upon pain of death. 

He’s just started to saute the asparagus when the red alert happens. Bones comes bursting into their quarters and Jim knocks the pan into the sink. Well, fuck. 

The second time he plans a meal, the diplomatic conference he sent Spock and Uhura too goes south. He has to beam down to avoid an incident and he burns the pan leaving the water to boil. Bones laughs at his apparent lack of cooking skills and whips them up something. Jim threatens to throw Uhura and Spock in the brig. 

The third time, Jim’s plans get waylaid after he winds up in sickbay with an alien strain of the stomach flu. Fuck you, viruses. He can’t even look at the recipe without throwing up. 

At some point, Jim just gives up. It’ll happen when it happens. 

Until they come back from a tiring mission. Jim didn’t need saving, dammit, but security, Spock and Bones burst in as if he’s a damn damsel in distress. 

He’s angry and exhausted. But most of all starving. He wanders into the kitchen and rummages through the cabinets, trying to find something quick amid all the random ingredients. 

It doesn’t take long for the light bulb to metaphorically turn on over his head. Without following a recipe, just relying on good ol’ Kirk instincts, he starts putting something together. 

Bones emerges from a shower, hair still damp, barefoot, in sweatpants that hang low on his hips. Jim licks his lips as he dishes the food onto a plate and hands it wordlessly to Bones. 

Bones raises one eyebrow at Jim but says nothing as he takes a bite. He sinks into a chair, basically moaning as the spices Jim threw together hit his tastebuds. 

Jim is smug the rest of the night, especially when Bones thanks him later on. 


	34. Crossroads

Jim doesn’t know how to patch a man together, to pull someone back from the brink of death and not let go. His paltry first aid skills won’t save Bones. Not when his blood is staining Jim’s hands, his knees, the hem of his shirt. 

Spock pulls him away. Uhura lets him bury his head in her shoulder but even the tears won’t come. Scotty gives him a drink, Chekov puts him to bed and Sulu stands watch. 

But no one notices when he slips out. Steals a shuttle and heads to a crossroads. 

The stories are old, older than the generations of his mother’s side, when his Gran used to sip sweet tea and tell stories. 

He sells his soul to a demon to see Bones’ hazel eyes again, hear his chuckle, feel the press of his lips. 

He sells his soul because it’s not worth much without Bones. 


	35. Take Aim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sudden rage.

_“No.”_

“Look, I know you told Spock you weren’t ready but-”

 

Bones lets the door slam behind him. The sound echoes down the empty hospital hallway and for once no one is there to reprimand him for his outburst. “Oh fuck him. Is that why they sent you because you’re able to emote?”

 

She frowns. “No. I came because we’re friends.”

 

He sighs, drags a hair through his hair. He can practically feel the grey. _See, Jim, you’ve given me greys. Overnight._ He deflates. “I’m sorry.”

 

She fidgets. Nyota Uhura– who he has seen stand up to Klingons and Spock and a room full of admirals with sticks up their asses–fidgets, uncomfortable and silent. 

 

“Will you…do you think you can try to talk to the Barnett? To get it over with?”

 

He feels his shoulders rise again, the tension pounding at the back of his neck. “No.”

 

Uhura all but throws her hands up. _“Why not?”_  


 

“Because. I don’t have anything to say to those assholes.”

 

She purses her lips. With anyone else, she would walk away. With Jim she’d roll her eyes and flip her hair in his face, with Spock she’d say something biting and idiomatic just to get his goat but with him, there’s silence. They’ve been through to much these last few days for anything more, he thinks.

 

What no one understands or has realized is that Jim died _._ _Died_. He was gone. Bones is not going to or never going to be able to let that go. He holds grudges worse than most kids on a playground and he has an ex-wife and a hefty bill from lawyers to prove it.

 

He can't let it go because every time he hears footsteps he hears the Security team walking the body bag into Medbay, every movement brings back the zipped up body bag. He can't move on from that. There's no after. Just a loop of those moments and the feeling of bottoming out, followed by a simmering all-encompassing rage remains. At the admiralty, at himself, at Spock, at fucking John Harrison. 

 

“Are you worried they’ll say something about the serum?”

 

He laughs. Or he thinks it's a laugh. He could be choking. His throat just feels raw. “Let them throw me in the brig. Let them give me a court martial. I'm not going anywhere."

 

“Len-”

 

“No, Nyota. They let Jim die. And if it were up to them, he would have stayed that way. So I’m not going anywhere near those sanctimonious sons of a bitches. Because if I do,” and his voice is low, his chest is heaving, his face flushed with the need to hit something, to break loose and take aim. “I will hold them accountable for what they've almost taking away from me."

 

He leaves her in the hallway as he walks in to see Jim, slumping down in the plastic chair beside the bed. He reaches forward to run a hand over Jim’s head, smoothing back the bangs that seemed to grow to unruly lengths in the past few days.

 

“You gotta wake up and save me from myself, kid.”


	36. Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The idea of going back to Georgia makes him want to drink until he passes out and projectile vomit over anyone who suggests it. Whichever comes first. He's halfway there.

It’s late.

Not like the next morning late but late enough that Jim is philosophical and Bones is fucked.

They’ve been drinking on the lawn outside of their dorms.

It’s two days into the Summer vacation and Jim and Bones are the only poor bastards still on campus.

Thing is, they don’t actually have any other place to go.

“Can’t go back to Iowa,” Jim says and hiccups.

“Why not?” Bones asks and takes the bottle from where it sits at Jim’s hip, plays with the gross melting label, torn and lose from the sweating glass.

“Too fucking depressing.”

Bones can agree. The idea of going back to Georgia makes him want to drink until he passes out and projectile vomit over anyone who suggests it. Whichever comes first. He's halfway there. 

“But where the fuck else would I go, Bones?” Jim asks, lying down so that he's sunk into the grass, and he sounds tired. For the kid who made his first year at the academy a delight for everyone (including a whole Sorority house) around, Jim sounds miserable.

He wants to ask, _what can I do?_ He wants to ask, _how can I fix it?_ As if maybe, Jim would want him to.

“We could do something,” Bones says in the space between their breathing, so that if Jim laughs outright or ignores him it’s like nothing was said.

Jim sits up. His hair is mussed up and he looks like he's just woke up after a hundred year nap. “Yeah? You’d want to do that?”

Bones stomach flip flops. “If you want to, kid, I want to.”

And Jim kisses him.

It’s not their first kiss.

It’s not even their first sort of drunk kiss.

But it feels different. Like on a different note. Not desperation or a sense of an ending.

Just right.

Jim licks his lips as he pulls away and Bones puts a finger up to touch the spot where their lips met, the part that basically fucking tingles.

Jim grins. “Thanks, Bones.”

For what, though, Bones will spend the rest of the night trying to remember.


	37. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim deals with the events of Star Trek Beyond in his own way.

Jim has a hiding spot that’s just his. 

He found the bar just before the Five Year mission began and spent a whole afternoon and evening saying goodbye to Terra with shot after shot. 

No one bothered him. The bartender–a guy named Mick who looks about Jim’s age– just charged him for the first few shots and then just kept pouring, like he understood what Jim needed to do there. 

It becomes something of a tradition, his going to the bar where no one says a thing to him or asks him anything or needs anything from him. 

Jim finds his way to the bar after they get back from Yorktown. He ignores the medal ceremony in favor of his favorite spot at the bar. He slides his comm down the bar. He doesn’t need it now. 

Mick puts two shot glasses down and then turns to grab something from the top shelf. They raise their glasses at each other and throw it back and the feel of it burning down his throat makes his eyes water. 

_“Jim.”_

He doesn’t know how long he’s been there. The music is too loud to really think of anything other than the rhythm and Jim’s put back too many to really focus on any one thing. 

Hands on his shoulder steady him on the barstool. 

He turns and nearly collides with Bones’ chest. “Hiya, Bonesie. Didn’t know you knew about this place. Cause it’s just mine, you know.”

Bones glares over Jim’s shoulder at Mick. “How many has he had?”

Jim pats the scruff on Bones’ face. “It’s okay, Bones. Mick takes care of me. Like you do.”

Bones’ grumble is as comforting as his hands on Jim’s shoulders, steady and heavy. 

“Let’s get you home, kid.”

Home. Home is a very empty apartment that he never bothered to fill. Home is a ship that barely exists anymore. Home is the man in front of him. 

“Home is everywhere I’m with you.” He croons before he can stop himself. He goes to apologize for his stupidity but of course, he burps. 

“I’ve got you.” Bones says, hand at the small of his back as they hit the brisk San Francisco air. 

Bones’ comm chirps and with his free hand he answers. “Yeah, tell Jaylah she can quit worrying, Scott. I got him.”

“Jaylah was worried?” Jim said, trying to focus on Bones despite the way the street lamps make everything look fuzzy. 

“Wasn’t the only one. Come on, let’s hail a hover.”

Jim falls asleep on the way home. Throws up to the cheer of some cadets in front of Academy housing. Bones all but carries him up to his apartment. 

The bed is at least warm. Bones puts a palm over Jim's forehead as he settles into the sheets. 

“You’ll be the death of me.” His CMO whispers. 

Jim wants to tell him that the feeling’s mutual. 


	38. Breakup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joanna watches her father’s breakup live on the news.

Joanna watches her father’s breakup live on the news. The tabloids, news channel, even TMZ Live, can’t get enough of cataloguing every moment of Jim and Bones’ split, down to even paying off members of the Enterprise crew to spy on them. Comms are read, pictures of them on shore leave put up for the federation to see, every moment inspected and dissected to the delight on millions of viewers. 

 _We had to know that Jim Kirk, a notorious playboy, couldn’t stay in a relationship that long._ One woman says around a coffee table to another. It’s their table talk of the hour and the break up of the century is a prime target for their gossip. 

 _Leonard McCoy had already been through a divorce. The relationship was doomed from the start._ A late night talkshow host says to the laughter of a live audience. 

Joanna’s new stepfather, Jocelyn’s annoying attempt at a second husband, chortles at all of this. He turns up the news after dinner, during breakfast, in the car on the way out. Jocelyn’s lips purse together and she finds Jo’s hand to squeeze but there really is no protecting her from this. It’s all over. 

So Jo squares her shoulders and comms the Enterprise and makes her Uncle Spock beam her aboard when they’re close to Earth. She doesn’t know if it’s possible for her dad and Jim’s relationship to be saved but she has to try. 


	39. Sexiest Man Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim is voted Sexiest Man Alive in People Magazine. Again.

The door slams and Jo stomps in. Jim and Bones are curled up on the couch in the Victorian's family room, enjoying the news together before Bones has to leave for his night shift. 

“Hey sweetie,” Jim says, tossing some popcorn in his mouth. 

She positions herself in front of the TV with her arms crossed, her fifteen-year-old attitude evident in every angle of her posture. “Do you know what today is?”

Jim turns to Bones with a horrified look on his face. “We didn’t pull a Sixteen Candles, did we?”

Bones gets up from the couch and lets Jim fall to the cushions. He makes a sound of discomfort and chokes on the popcorn kernel.

“It’s not her birthday, you infant," Bones says with a slap to his back.

Jo rolls her eyes. “No, it’s _People’s_ premiere of the Sexiest Man Alive Issue. Guess who is number one for the fifth year in a row?” Jo takes out a PADD and tosses it at Jim’s head. Luckily, even at an angle, he can catch. 

Bones tries to pull her down to couch with them like he used to at the beginning of a tantrum when she was a kid but she twists and pulls out of the way. 

“Bones, look!" Jim crows, delighted. "The people think I’m sexy!”

The very zoomed in cover of the magazine’s front shows Jim--stoic and serious with salt and pepper stubble, featured under bold bright print.

“What’s got you so upset?” Bones asks, trying again to swipe her toward the couch. She dodges. 

“Captain Sexy!” Jim croons. 

“Turn to page 20, dad.”

Jim does and barks out a laugh. “We're sexiest couple and Bones, look you’re Number five! You beat out that teeny bopper Jo likes!”

Jo’s posture just gets more rigid. “Do you know how embarrassing this is? When all your best friends are  _oogling_ over your dads?” She takes a seat on the couch. “It’s weird.”

Bones gets off from the couch, knees cracking in protest, pulling her into a hug. Jo definitely had a lot to deal with. Their lives were often put out on display when they didn’t want them to be. Everyone wanted to know more about the heroic Starfleet Captain and his family. This was just another intrusion. 

Jim shifts over to Jo and puts his chin on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jo Jo.”

She rolls her eyes, trying not to smile at Jim's pathetic puppy dog eyes. 

“Do your friends want autographs? Because if they do, we’d be happy to oblige!”

Jo squealed and hit Jim playfully on the shoulder. 

Jim grinned. “Sorry kiddo.”

Jo turned to face Bones. “You guys aren’t hanging this up right? Like the others?”

Jim grabbed the pad from it’s discarded place on the couch. “I have the perfect place for it. Right next to my Starfleet diploma…” He left the room and Jo’s eyes widened. 

“He’s kidding.” Bones told her. “I think…” And he got up to go make sure that Jim wasn’t mounting the PADD to the wall. 


	40. Back Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim wants to put his broken crew back together.

Jim wants to put his broken crew back together. 

He wants to take Scotty out for a pub crawl, put him and Keenser to bed on the couch, be there when he wakes up from the nightmare of discovering his captain in the Warp Core. 

He wants to fence with Sulu (letting him teach and ultimately school Jim), clap Hikaru on the back and tell him he’s proud for not abandoning Spock when ordered to.

He wants to take Chekov to a Russian festival, letting the younger Navigator tell Jim what foods to try, what to buy, what stalls to talk to the proprietors. 

Jim wants to go with Spock to see Ambassador Spock. To learn the best chess moves, to hear the stories the older Vulcan is ready and able to tell, to remember that this friendship went to hell and back before, it can again. 

Jim wants to let Uhura choose what she wants to do. The whole day, whatever she wants. Linguistics conference? Art exhibit? Some lute playing? Whatever. They tease each other the whole time she drags  him along and Jim’s never been as comfortable out of his element as he is with her. 

He wants Carol to take him home to England. To have tea with her mother. To talk not about their fathers or guilt or anything else but about science and the ship and how to make Spock’s ears tinge green.

Jim wants to surprise Bones with Joanna (It wasn’t hard to get Eleanora McCoy to persuade Jocelyn and Spock and Uhura collected her from the shuttle). I want them to spend the weekend going to the zoo, the aquarium to the movies. I want the heaviness of what happened to be filled with Jo’s giggles, her endless innocent questions, her happy exclamations. 

He wants game night. Competitive and loud, bets placed on who will win LIFE,  MONOPOLY, Who killed who in CLUE. I want TWISTER (possibly drunk Twister) and Trivia and staying up until even the ship’s computers don’t know what time it is. 

Jim wants his crew know that like him, they’re still broken but that each thing big or small he can do, can maybe, possibly help set them whole again.


	41. Philosophy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Jim gets philosophical.

Sometimes, Jim gets philosophical. 

It’s usually after really great sex or he’s just towing the line of tipsy, not yet happy drunk and not sober enough to be angry about it. 

Bones is used to it. 

This time, they’re in bed, tracing shapes on each other’s skin and being lazy. They deserve it after the ~~week~~ , ~~month,~~ year they’ve had. Doctor’s orders. Bed rest and cuddling. 

Bones is pleased with himself. He’s smiling softly into Jim’s hair, basking in the goosebumps that rise as Jim trails soft fingertips over his arms when Jim says-

“I hope I die for good before you. I really do. But if I do, I’m fucked.”

Bones’ eyebrows narrow. He refuses to raise his eyebrows at Jim’s inane comments because the kid told him the other day he looked like Spock when he did that and…well, he’ll be happier than a pig in shit if he’s never compared to the hobgoblin again. Especially in bed. 

“Don’t really believe in an afterlife. I mean, not really. But with all the shit we see, I guess it’s possible.” Jim’s rambling. His hands have not stopped their ministrations but have quickened in pace, fingers dancing over Bones' skin without pattern or thought. 

He wants to say something in return but experience has taught him to let Jim finish, take whatever stray thoughts come out as babbling to find their way into the empty spaces between them and then comment, argue, reassure. 

“So I think I’d end up in Purgatory. They’d have a hard time trying to figure out where to put me. Definitely not heaven. Hell might want me but-” Jim makes a sound. A chuckle? It’s too low to tell. “I think they’d spit me back out.”

“So yeah, I’d have to wait for you. And I hope I wait a long time.” Jim pokes Bones arm as he says this, punctuating each word with a poke.

“And why’s that?” Bones drawls, throat unsure of which emotion it wants to color the tone with. He hopes for fond exasperation. 

“Because without you, heaven’s never gonna let me in.”

Silence except for the buzz that always accompanies Enterprise living. 

And then, god help him, Bones laughs. Laughs so hard he throws his head against the pillow and nearly knocks the back of his head against Jim’s chin. “You dumbass, you got that from a song, didn’t you?”

Jim’s sheepish when Bones finally turns to look at him. “It might have inspired that line of thinking.”

Bones rolls his eyes, shifts position again and pulls Jim closer. His heart always aches, his body seizing when he thinks of Jim dead. He burns those thoughts like he burned the body bag, gloves, hypos, and everything he didn’t turn over to Starfleet Medical. It’s probably not a good sign—lingering trauma, definitely—that he reacts this way. But this, joking about it, making light of the inevitable, is okay. He can breathe easier. 

He sighs against the back Jim’s neck, kissing just below the curls that still are growing there. 

“You’re a dork.”

“I’m your dork.”

“God help me but yes you are.”

And just like that, they’re okay. 


	42. Tornadoes

He should have known it would happen eventually. 

They were two tornadoes, too destructive and quick to stay together. 

And now Bones is sitting on the floor in a shitty motel room on the first planet he could get too after resigning his commission. 

He’s a little drunk. Maybe more than a little. And has had his hand on his comm for the past few hours, deliberately not thinking about the hurt he hurled at Jim or the anger he got right back. 

He won’t be able to do without Jim for long. 

He was just so angry. Angrier than he had ever been. 

He knew what he needed. _Who_ he needed. 

It had only been a week since he left. 

He wondered what Jim was doing. It was a quarter after one on the planet. What time was it on the Enterprise, wherever it was?

And then his comm beeped. 

_Please open the door._

He stumbles up and to the door, everything spinning and blurring around him. 

"Hey." Jim says, bloodshot eyes and more scruff than he's ever seen on the kid. 

"Hey."

"I missed you."

"Not as much as I missed you." Bones falls into Jim, head hitting him on the shoulder. 

 

 


	43. Fake It Till You Make It

Jim can’t always keep a smile on his face or keep the tension out of his shoulders. He tries, but sometimes he can’t keep it up. He realized at one point that it was better to fake the positive attitude than show he was miserable. “Fake it till you make it. Right, Bones?” He said one time when Bones asked him about it. The other man is the only one who has gotten to see him when he gets a bit…sad. Like now. 

“Come on, kid.” Bones says, throwing his cards down. “If you don’t want to play, we don’t have to.”

“Just not in the mood, I guess.”

“What are you in the mood for?” Bones asks, raising his eyebrows, a small grin playing on his features. He does what he has to do cheer Jim up. He’ll do whatever it takes. Well, within reason. He’s not going to that one bar, ever again. But if he has to play card games, watch old comedy shows, listen to retro music, bake, he will. 

Jim shrugs and puts his face in his hands. 

“Want to hear a knock knock joke?”

Jim raises his head. “No?”

“Knock Knock.”

Jim screws his lips together, as if he just had a shit ton of lemons. “Who’s there?” he says with a roll of his eyes. 

“I love.”

Jim presses his lips together. “Love who?”

“Love who, you tell me!” Bones does a bit of jazz head and mimics hitting the hi hat of a drum. 

Jim groans. “That was awful.”

“When you’re on a three hour shuttle ride with Jo, you learn all sorts of things.”

Bones can keep a straight face for only a few minutes but he snorts just about the same time that Jim starts laughing, throwing his head back. 

“You’re a dork.” Jim says. 

“You mean, I’m your dork.” Bones reminds him. 

“Yeah, Bones. Definitely your dork. Speaking of dorks, did you know-"

Bones groans but can't keep the goofy smile off his face for the rest of the night, knowing that he can still make Jim laugh and that means the world to him. 


	44. The Best Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim has a day planned for Joanna and Bones.

“Okay, you ready for this?” Jim clapped his hands, jumping off the bench.

Jo kicked her shoes in an angry rhythm, scuffing the pavement as she went. “I guess.”

“I’m gonna need a little more enthusiasm than that, Jo Jo.”

Joanna sighed. She was leaving tomorrow morning for a cousin’s wedding in Georgia–cutting short her stay with her dad on their first shore-leave in over a year. And Bones had been stuck in mandatory meetings for the past week, leaving a sullen ten-year-old and a hopeless Jim behind.

Jim knew what it was like to be left behind–his mother spent the majority of his childhood in space. But at least Bones wanted to spend time with his daughter–moved heaven and Earth and a particularly stubborn ex-wife in order to see Jo. Winona had hidden from Jim whenever she was around.

“Maybe we should just go back to your apartment.” Jo said, sounding like Bones in one of his more maudlin moods. 

“Nope! I have a fun filled day planned. You have twenty-five more seconds to sulk.”

Jo scrunched up her nose. “Why twenty-five?”

“You’ll see.”

They were perfectly positioned in front of the Medical offices on Fleet campus. Jim had called in a favor or two and then had spent the rest of the morning planning a day that would make Jo feel like she had spent a week with them. He fidgeted as he looked at his watch. In twenty-three-two-one seconds, the day would begin and he was actually a little…nervous? Kirks didn’t get nervous. Jim didn’t get nervous. He stood up straighter, shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned at Jo. 

The alarm in the Med building went off–a loud bleat followed by an automated voice asking for an organized exit as safety officials examined the building.

Jo’s head whipped around. “Uncle Jim! What did you do?”

Cadets streamed out of the building, some gleeful, some annoyed. Jo threw her head back and laughed. 

“You’re a genius!” She giggled and then ran to see her dad, who was jogging in their direction. 

“Do I even want to know?” Bones asked as he held Jo tight. 

“We have a day planned. No room for brass meetings. You ready?” He asked Jo again. 

She nodded and Jim tugged Bones’ free hand away from the building. 

–

Twelve hours later found Jo passed out on top of them both on the couch. She was exhausted, having passed out on their way back from the boardwalk. 

“Thank you,” Bones whispered into his neck, following his words up with a kiss behind his ear. 

“It was worth it. She was so happy.” Jim sighed happily, full on cotton candy and cheese steak. 

“You’re amazing.” Bones sighed, hand gently massaging the nape of Jim’s neck, fingers curling into hair. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

Jim laughed softly, careful not to disturb his boyfriend’s daughter and leaned his head down on Bones shoulder content to just stay there and not think about Jo leaving tomorrow or how Bones would sulk for a few days afterward until he’d snap himself out of it. He wouldn’t think about the fight that would ensue when Jocelyn comm’d to summon Jo or the way she would make it harder for Jo to see them next time. It was just perfect to be there together. To be a family unit he had never got to have. 

“One day. she’ll be yours too.” Bones said in the quiet that followed.  “One day when you agree to marry me.”

Jim’s breath stuttered. “Are you asking?”

“It’s a bit overdue.” Bones rumbled. “I was going to ask. I had something planned-”

“Yes. Forget the plan. Just yes.” Jim leaned sat up, careful again not to wake Jo and kissed his, fuck, his fiancé, slow and sweet. 

Jo rolled off the couch and into a crouch like a fucking ninja holy shit. “I KNEW IT. Tell Mama there’s no way I’m going home now, daddy!”

Jim and Bones laughed themselves until they couldn’t breathe. It was the perfect ending to a pretty damn good day.


	45. Serenade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim was drunk. Serenading Bones sounds like a good idea.

Jim was drunk. 

“You’re drunk.” Bones tells him. 

He really wasn’t. 

‘I’m not.” He told his husband, pausing just long enough to stick his tongue out in his effort to climb onto the bar’s lone long table. He slapped Cupcake’s hand away as he wobbled onto his feet. 

Uhura stuffed her fist into her mouth and hid her face in the crook of Spock’s neck. “Captain, perhaps you should-” Spock started. 

“Don’t bother. He’s determined.” Bones sighed, Jim’s favorite of Bones’ sighs, the affectionate exasperated kind. 

“Music, maestro!” Jim pointed at Keenser who was playing DJ for some reason after he reclaimed it from Jaylah’s rather aggressive playlist selection. 

A song started up–something classic and Jim moved off beat as Keenser cranked up the volume. 

“This song, crewbies-” The captain started.

“Crewbies?” Sulu mouthed to Chekov, who shrugged. 

“Is for my Bonsie.” Jim yelled, flinging his hands wide.

Bones ran a hand over his face, desperate to not be the only mostly sober one in the bar. 

“I DIDN’T KNOW THAT I WAS STARVING TILL I TASTED YOU.” Jim jumped on the table, making everyone jump back. 

“Fuck, Jim,” Bones tried to hide his blush but Jaylah was already snapping a comm (she kept documenting everything she found fascinating).

“Don’t need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo!” Jim crowed, skipping away from Cupcake’s attempts to get him down and Bones attempts shoo him off the table. 

“By the wayyyyy, by the way, you do the things to my boddddddy.” Jim yelled, voice cracking with the effort.

Later, Jim had no one to blame but himself when the newsfeeds picked up the video. And Bones spent the rest of their afternoon under the covers making Jim pay for embarrassing him. It was worth it. 

[gredtheunicorn](http://gredtheunicorn.tumblr.com/) prompted me with “Bones trying not to smile while Jim serenades him?”


	46. Orphan Jim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie AU

The boys of the San Francisco orphanage were not afraid. 

Sure, they didn’t have parents, they were often forgotten and they were at the mercy of Mr. Komack, the worst of the orphanage supervisors, but they had the best protectors.

Le, or Bones as Jim called him, was the oldest in the orphanage and took to being the older brother of the group. He was the one who demanded Komack feed them, patched up bruises and scraped knees and tucked each boy into bed at night. 

Jim, his best friend, was just a few years younger and still older than most of the other boys. He was also a troublemaker, who was going to Bones grey hairs at age sixteen and probably drive him to drink. Jim spent most of his times devising a way to escape from the orphanage and making Komack’s blood pressure rise. He also was more often than not the one who got punished, thrown in a small storage closet with no lights or windows. Bones would usually distract Komack after twenty minutes and the other kids would stage a breakout but the supervisor’s ire was still there. 

No matter what he did, Bones loved Jim. Loved him fiercely. It was the only thing that kept him around, even though he dreamed of walking out for good and never coming back. And Bones was everything to Jim too. Everything except for the the hole in his heart he had when he saw prospective parents come look at the younger boys. He was never good enough to warrant that sort of visit. Nobody wanted a damaged thirteen- year-old. 

 ~*~

It was a wet, grey December day when Jim popped out the back window of the kitchen for a walk around the city. He did this often but this time he was angry. Komack had nearly hit Bones and denied the littlest boys breakfast and Jim was afraid that if he stayed around long enough he would do something that would get him a punishment worse that being locked in the closet. 

It wasn’t until he got hauled back by the police that he realized he should have just stayed at the orphanage. 

“Oh thank you, thank you so much for bringing the boy back.” Komack acted like the kindly grandfather around outsiders, slipping his glasses to his nose and squinting, while offering a wise smile. He laid a hand on Jim’s shoulder, his fingers curling with just enough pressure to make Jim tense. 

“Last time, Mr. Komack. We find the kid around again and he’s off to the detention center.”

“Of course. Thank you, officer.” Komack nodded and closed the door, shutting out the cold air and freedom of outside. 

Komack pushed Jim into the foyer as the rest of the boys scrambled out of the dormitories, curious as to what Jim had gotten up to now. 

“You stupid fucking brat. Do you want this orphanage to close? All the little lazy imbeciles to go to detention center? Huh?” He pushed Jim again and he was so caught off guard that he stumbled into the staircase, falling and landing hard on his back. 

“I’m going to make you wish you had never been born, kiddo. I swear to God.” Komack raised his hand just an inch and that was all it took as Bones barrled into Komack, all broad shoulders and solid bone, knocking them both down.

“Don’t you fucking dare touch him, you piece of-” Bones growled interrupted only by the loud antiquated ringing of the doorbell. 

Each boy froze, turning in synch to the door. 

Komack stood up, brushing off and straightening his clothes as Jim stumbled over to Bones to help him up. Komack’s eyes spelled out murder, possibly literally, as he walked to the door and the rest of the boys disappeared. 

“You okay?” Bones whispered, running his hands over Jim’s shoulders, down his arms. 

Jim nodded, feeling his heart rate slow down and the blood slowly drain from his face and ears.

They heard Komack speak in the soft even tones of pure bullshit but didn’t stay around enough to see who Komack would lead through the foyer but retired to the dormitory instead. 

It wasn’t until a half hour later when Komack came in, stony faced and crooked his finger that they budged from Jim’s favorite place at the edge of the dormitory window. Jim uncurled himself from Bones side and stood up, nearly shaking at the prospect of going anywhere with that asshole. Bones stood up instantly beside him. 

“Just Jim.” Komack spit out. 

“He goes, I go.” Bones said and Jim noticed how his best friend’s fists curled at his sides. 

Komack muttered something but he was turning away from the door and was too far away to be heard. Bones laced his fingers through Jim’s hand as they walked down to Komack’s office. 

But instead of the closet door being held open or any other instrument of Jim’s demise, an attractive blonde woman sat before the desk, legs crossed and perched at the edge of the seat. She stood as the boys walked into the room. 

“You must be Jim.” She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Christine Chapel, Christopher Pike’s assistant. We’d like to offer you a few weeks to stay with us.”

Jim took a step back, his hand still linked with Bones. “Me? Why?”

“Jim…” Komack said, fixing him with his grandfatherly smile. His eyes told him to shut the fuck up.

“Well, Mr. Pike would like to extend his home to an orphan this holiday season.”

“I’m not a charity case.” Jim scowled. 

Bones pinched him. 

“Oh, sweetheart, we know that. We’re just hoping to make Christmas a little better for you.”

Christmas? What the fuck was Christmas? He nearly snorted. 

“Bones comes with me.”

“What, dear?” Chapel asked. 

“Bones.” He gestured to his best friend. “He comes with me.”

“Jim-” Bones said but this time Jim pinched him instead. 

“Oh Jim, I don’t think Ms. Chapel can take the two of you.” Komack said with a smile, a smile that promised to exploit that. 

“No, no, Mr. Komack, I think that can be arranged. Is there any papers I should sign?”

There weren’t. In another half hour Jim and Bones were being loaded into a ridiculously expensive looking car, free of the orphanage. Jim could barely believe it. And as he looked at Bones as they drove past the city streets and landmarks that they had only sort of heard about, Jim knew his best friend couldn’t believe it either.


	47. Thanksgiving

Bones wants Thanksgiving, even if they're not even close to the vestiges of the United States, even if by the time the 23rd century rolls around, it’s more of an honorary holiday than anything else, adopted from a mishmash of harvest celebrations across worlds. 

Yet somehow Jim pulls off a Thanksgiving miracle. 

Sweet potato casserole, creamed spinach, that nasty cranberry thing Jim’s pretty sure he’s allergic to. Pumpkin pie, pecan pie, turkey galore. 

Spock thinks it’s illogical to hang turkeys and pictures of cornucopia in the mess but he does it anyway. 

Uhura designs beautiful centerpieces with alien plants with Sulu’s help.

Chekov and Scotty fight over who will be bringing the booze. 

And just when Bones' smile begins to reach his eye,  Jim pushes away from the head of the table, takes Bones' hand and marches him down to the transporter room. 

"Is this a new Thanksgiving tradition I don't know about?" Bones asks, leaning into Jim's side, content and bursting with good food. 

"I hope so." Jim mutters, typing in something on his comm, his brow furrowed as he checks the readout on the screen.

The whir of the transporter machine is followed by a high pitched squeal, "Daddy!" and then Joanna McCoy is running headlong into Bones, knocking the wind out of him. 

"What the-Jo? Baby?" Bones breathes out a laugh, hands smoothing Jo's hair away from her face as she laughs and laughs. 

Jim breathes a sigh of relief. He actually fucking pulled it off. It’s a week past actual Thanksgiving on Earth this point, finally managing to get into Transporter range so that Jo could beam up but who cares? Bones expression is worth it.

And when they finally get back to the table and go around saying what they’re Thankful for Bones doesn’t say anything, just grins at Jim and squeezes his hand, leaning forward to kiss his temple. 

 


	48. FUBAR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim knows his situation is FUBAR when Bones calls him Baby. Or sweetheart.

Jim knows his situation is FUBAR when Bones calls him  _Baby._ Or  _sweetheart._

 _Darlin’_ is alright.  _Darlin’_ is safe. 

But anything else?

Usually means Jim’s bleeding out, losing consciousness, being rushed from transporter to surgery—-Bones’ face drawn and white, his hands always so steady as they pull him back, hold tight and don’t let go. Even when Jim desperately wants to. 

_“Tired, ‘ones. Just let me-”_

_“No, sweetheart. Keep your eyes open for me, okay?”_

_“Hurts.”_

_“I know, Baby. We’re almost back to the ship. You hang on, you hear me?”_

And the one time that Jim didn’t listen, couldn’t listen to Bones, was not because the other man wouldn’t let go but because he wasn’t around to. 

His last thought is how he misses it. Bones’ endearments. Even if it means he can’t be saved this time. Even if it’s the last thing he hears. 

He doesn’t think Bones will ever forgive him for dying alone, separated by glass. Thinks that the man’s pure fury about it is enough to bring him back from the dead, with the help of Khan’s blood, of course. 

And when he wakes up, eyes almost too heavy to blink open, Bones is there. Carding fingers through his hair, pressing a kiss to his temple. 

“Welcome back, darlin’." 

And he knows they’re safe.


	49. Apple and Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Would you like to know what your daughter did?”

“Would you like to know what your daughter did?”

Leonard breathes a sigh of relief as his Jocelyn’s face appears in computer’s view screen, looking more annoyed than heartbroken, more amused than distraught. Joanna’s okay. The pit that had appeared at the bottom of his stomach as soon as he got the incoming comm vanished. It was never a good sign if Jocelyn comm’d out of the blue, even if they had been more…civil (friendly even) lately. 

“What’d she do?” He asks. 

“She  _spit_ on a reporter.”

Leo straightens, leaning into the computer. “What?”

“You heard me. A reporter came calling and asked to interview us and he might have made some unsavory suggestions. And Joanna Elizabeth McCoy, bless her heart, stomped on his foot and spit at him.”

They both keep their straight faces for about two seconds until Leo bursts out laughing, unable to keep it in. He holds his palm over his mouth as he imagines his little girl spitting on a reporter. 

“Spitting-” he manages before he laughs again, breathless. 

“I didn’t know what to do with her!” Jocelyn says after calming down. “I was torn between giving her a cookie and sending her to her room." 

"I hope you gave her a cookie for me.” Leo tells her after he can breathe again. 

Jocelyn sobers. “Bastard deserved it. Don’t get too worried-and you tell Jim this too-if you get a bad write up.”

“He won’t care. Wait till I tell him. He’ll probably want to congratulate her.” He rolls his eyes. 

“Can’t decide if he’s a bad influence or a better one.” Jocelyn says, a wry smile forming. He had originally thought that his second marriage would sour what small tenuous relationship Jocelyn and he had begun to build again, but it had the opposite affect. She was happy for him and it actually helped them communicate better. Which was a plus. 

“So what did he say?”

“Hmm?" 

"The reporter. What did he ask?”

Jocelyn sighs and fiddles with something outside of the screen. She’s a horrible liar and an even worse omitter. “Len, I really don’t think-”

“I gotta know now, Joce.”

“Just trying to poke some holes in your story. Don’t think he’s a huge fan of Jim’s.”

Leo frowns at the screen. “He from one of those tabloids?”

“Maybe, I don’t know, he didn’t really say…”

“Those assholes better stay away. They come near you again, you let me know, right away.” The tabloids had always had a blast trying to bring Jim down. Paparazzi followed them everywhere, had even snuck on the Enterprise during an extended Shore leave on Earth. It had been Leo’s pleasure to see Spock nerve pinch the bastard. 

“Well, your daughter probably took care of one of them for you." 

Leo grins at her. "You give her a kiss for me. And tell her I’ll see her soon.”

They were due back on Earth in a few days. He could’t wait to have her visit him and Jim for a bit in San Francisco. It would be the first shore leave since they had gotten married. That was probably one of the reasons the reporter came around. Bastard. 

“Will do. You say hi to Jim for me. Safe home.”

She disconnects the call before he can respond but that’s okay. He’s turning around and out of his seat to go find Jim just as the screen goes blank. He can’t wait to tell him and see his face when he finds out. 


	50. Medbay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Medbay, Bones is CMO, Jim’s doctor, wielder of hyposprays and master of the glare of doom that makes ensigns scurry and Chapel roll her eyes.

In Medbay, Bones is CMO, Jim’s doctor, wielder of hyposprays and master of the glare of doom that makes ensigns scurry and Chapel roll her eyes.

 In their quarters, Bones is Jim’s husband, one half of an equation that Bones will never be able to solve nor is he unwilling to try. They work and that’s it. He’s terrified and worried, hands itching to do here what they already did in Sickbay: fix, heal, patch up. He can only caress, rub, smooth over bandages and sweaty hair on the back of Jim’s neck after he wakes up from a nightmare-one that’s probably shared.

 “Please, please, don’t do that again.” Bones asks, kissing down Jim’s shoulder, inches away from the arrow wound that stopped Jim’s heart for thirty seconds earlier that day.

 “I’m sorry, Bones.” Jim said and wrapped one hand around Bones neck, his cool hand and even colder ring causing Bones to shiver.

“I just,” Bones punctuates the pause with a kiss. “Love you,” Another kiss. “Too much.” Kiss. “And it fucking kills me.” Gentle nip. “When you’re hurt.”

 Jim’s fingers play with the hair on the back of Bones’ neck. His face is scrunched up, like when he goes over Scotty’s budget reports or has a nasty round in poker.

 Bones catches the side of Jim’s lips with his mouth, the rest of his face immediately smoothing out.

 “Just please don’t make it so I can’t fix you. I don’t know what-“ Bones says inches apart from Jim’s mouth but the other man closes the distance.

 They’ve had this talk before. In many different ways. Bones knows they’ll have it again. And he knows Jim hears him, knows he cares. But he also knows that if Jim’s faced between sitting out a dangerous away mission or going down to help protect his crew, he’ll do it, and take all arrows, phaser shots, in the process. And Bones will do whatever it takes, no matter what, to patch him up again.


	51. Bookstore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McKirk Bookstore AU

There are worse fates than this, Jim thinks as he flips the lock on the deadbolt. A lot of people run away from their past and problems, refusing to own them like an unwanted gift that they’re too guilty to part with. Jim doesn’t own his past anymore. He owns a bookstore. 

He’s about to walk away from the door, the early December air is exceptionally bitter this morning, but he notices the figure practically slumped in the vestibule. Scruffy, still in scrubs and with a fraying jacket that looks just as worn down as the man himself. 

Jim sighs and waves his hand to Chekov at the cafe counter. They’re going to need a lot of coffee. Possibly spiked.

~*~

 _I’m a man set in my ways._ Leonard McCoy said one night when Jim kept the store open later than he should have and they sat on the threadbare couch around the cafe area, a little too close, sharing a bottle of something a little too sweet.

Jim laughed and said that sounded like something a character in one of the books on his shelf would say. 

-

The first time Doctor McGrump comes wandering in, Jim’s reorganizing his Must Read table. This table is organized bi-weekly because as Chekov says, Jim inhales books like people inhale air and the selection is always shifting. It gets lonely in his studio apartment and he has shoddy bootleg cable. Books are company. Books are the opposite of loneliness. 

“‘Scuse me,” Smooth southern drawl like buttery maple syrup on a short stack startles Jim out of arranging the books into a star. He drops  _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_ on the floor. “I’m looking for a book.” _  
_

Jim whirls around, a witty stuck on the tip of his tongue when he gets a look at the guy. Stubble and green eyes, floppy brown hair and a screwed up expression (is he allergic to books?) and definitely the hottest guy Jim has seen ~~all week, month, year,~~ forever. “Uh, yeah.” Jim rubs his hands on his pants for lack of anything to do with the rebellious digits, and licks his lips. “Anything specific?”

“It’s for my daughter. She’s read most of the popular teenager fiction, young adult, I think it’s called?" 

Jim nods, focusing so much on the way the way there might be noticeable grey in the man’s stubble that he trips over daughter. Daughter means wife. White picket fence. Happy family and definitely no room for Jim Kirk, collector of books and lost causes. Fuck. "Yeah.”

“Well, she’s coming to visit me this week and I’d like to have a few books for her.”

Jim feels a million years lighter, like balloons are tugging him up and up into the ceiling. Visiting means separation? Divorce? He grins, realizing he’s a very bad man to want another person to be divorced. “I’ve got some ideas.”

-

He loads McCoy up with his usual picks. (Yes, he’s twenty-seven and still reads young adult fiction). The new Jandy Nelson, his favorite from Walter Dean Meyers, Jacqueline Woodson, a few underrated novels that usually skip the notice of the top YA lists. Well, fuck that. He makes his own lists. 

McCoy buys all ten. Jim had only intended to give him a few choices but McCoy waved him away said, “Trust you,” and handed Jim his credit card. 

Impressive.

-

“What made you open a bookstore?”

“Books are easier to deal with.”

“Than what?”

_People. Responsibilities. Expectations. You name it, I’m running from it. And books are a hella lot easier to face._

 

_-_

Two nights before McCoy walked in looking the worst Jim’s ever seen him- and this was after the time that Jim found him slumped outside the sore-- he kissed Jim for the first time. 

They had been on their usual spot on the couch. Chekov had just left, left a pot of coffee on for them, some pumpkin spice concoction that they both begrudgingly drink. 

And then they kissed. First slow and then desperate as if they needed to make up for all the time they weren’t kissing. 

Jim’s breathless when he pulls back, feels like a character in one of the books, like he just stepped out of the pages and into real life. Or maybe McCoy did. Maybe he can only exist in the shop. 

Leonard’s shaking his head, getting up, backing away. “Sorry. So damn sorry.”

And fleeing. 

So not fictional. Just heartbreakingly real. 

-

Chekov won’t let Jim spike their coffee, so Jim stays behind the counter of the cafe. He needs distance between him and Leonard. Lots of distance. 

“I-” McCoy begins. He shrugs out of his jacket. It’s hot in here, just like Jim likes it—cozy and warm like bookstores should be—but is cold all the time now. 

“My ex-wife. She took everything. My career. My daughter. All I had left was my bones.” He shakes his head, rubs a tired hand over his face. 

Jim wants to hold his hand up, to stop him and tell him that there’s no need for him to explain. He doesn’t want McCoy to explain. He wants him to buy his books and get out of the shop and maybe not come back. 

The other man takes a slow sip of coffee, his eyes closing at Chekov’s brewing brilliance and puts the mug back down. “You know, when I’m with you, I feel the same. Like all I have left is my bones.” Jim snorts. Comforting thought, isn’t it? But McCoy’s shaking his head. “No. It’s like, you just see me. Not as the sad sack of shit I feel like. Not as the failure that I am. You make me feel like me again.” And McCoy’s smile is tentative and hopeful. 

Jim laughs. He can’t help it. “Was that rehearsed?”

McCoy shrugs. 

Jim takes the empty mug. Tells him to pay Chekov and leaves him for the silence of his back office, for the stairs leading up to his loft, for the opposite of books: loneliness. 

-

“So you’re the man that’s been giving my dad the best freaking books I’ve ever read.”

Jim’s blinking into his third cup of coffee when the voice startles him awake. 

A young girl, about fourteen? is standing a few feet away from the counter. Her hair is done in one of those fishtail braid things and her arms are crossed. There’s no guessing about who she is. She has McCoy’s scowl. 

“Ah, yeah. I guess I am. Joanna, right?”

Her lips twitch but her scowl stays put. “Did you give him a sad book? Is that why he’s moping? Or did you _do_ something else?”

McCoy was moping? Over what? The fact that he rejected Jim? 

“I didn’t do anything.”

Joanna leans on the counter, all conspiratorial like. “He always hums when he makes me damn lucky pancakes. Today? No humming. Something’s wrong.”

Jim frowns. 

“I’m sorry, Joanna. I really am.”

She blows out her breathe. “I’m going to need you to make it better. Because I can’t. I’ve tried.”

He sighs. “I don’t really know how.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “So you did do something.”

“No. I didn’t say that.”

She crosses her arms again. “You need to fix it, Jim Kirk.”

He doesn’t even know how she knows her name but she’s McCoy’s kid and is obviously whip smart and christ, how did he ever get into this? Wasn’t opening a bookstore a solution to his problems not more of a magnet to them?

He makes her a cup of hot chocolate and lets her use the phone to call her dad. And then sits on the couch with her, staring at the way the leaves hit the vestibule’s window and how he wishes he could climb into any one of the books he has in there. 

In the end he gives her a book.  _The Little Prince._ It’s his favorite. It always has a table on the must-buy table no matter how many other books are clamoring for a spot. 

-

Jo sneaks to the bookstore every day for the next two weeks. He purposely doesn’t meet McCoy’s eyes when the man comes to collect her and just grunts as Leonard thanks him. Jo starts paying for the books he gives her, even if he doesn’t have the heart to take her money. Sometimes they talk as they wait for Leonard to come get her, sitting curled up on the couch with cookies and hot cocoa. Sometimes they read in silence. 

Jim gives her  _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Peace Like A River, Jellicoe Road, The Age of Miracles._ Books he fell in love with and hopes she will too, always intending for them to be shared. The messages clear and present like the crazy heartbeat Jim has when he gives them to her. The books are a piece of his soul. He found a bit of himself in them. 

-

McCoy starts coming to the store with her. Sitting in a back corner and pulling out one of the books Jim gave her the week before. Jim steals glances when he sees McCoy shift in his chair or frown so loudly his feelings broadcast around the room. When he laughs out loud at  _Good Omens,_ Jim wants to dance around the room.

And then one day, Jo doesn’t come. 

“She went back to her mama’s. It okay if I come in?”

Jim’s nodding, about to find something to do like sweep or alphabetize when McCoy catches his arm in a gentle grip. 

“Thank you. For the books.”

And Jim’s hands curl into fists to keep from reaching out, his heart melts like a Austen heroine, his tongue moves against his mouth to start saying everything he wants to. 

He pulls away with a nod and goes back to the counter. 

One of the many quotes he wrote down on the counter in sharpie (he was bored as fuck that day) stares back at him. 

For when you want to do something you’re afraid of: “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” -Jonathan Safran Foer. 

He scowls. 

For when you want what your parents had: “When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.” -Jonathan Safran Foer

For when things don’t make sense about people: “Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.” -Jandy Nelson

His head is full and he wants to throw all the books across the room, to stop living in them and start living outside them. He maybe wants to run to his problems. He wants his problems to stop. 

He thinks about leaving the bookstore to Chekov and running all the way around the country like Forrest Gump. Or something.

Maybe talking to McCoy was less of a challenge.

"Hey Bones?" 

The man looks up, scowl replacing a look of serenity. Jim wonders what book he had in his hands. Replaces that thought by thinking about what he needs to say. 

"Me?”

“Yeah. It’s your new name. Because of what you said.”

He lets Bones think about that and watches a soft smile replace the scowl. The serene look is back. 

“I’m fucked up. Your fucked up. Maybe the books make us less so. Maybe being together will make us less so. But we’ll never know till we give it a try, right? I mean…if you’re good with that.”

Bones is nodding slowly. “I don’t want my fucked up to fuck this up.”

Jim grins. “Not any more than my fucked up can fuck this up.”

Bones sets the book down gently, cover up. It's  _One Day._ Book of missed chances and regret. Hopefully nothing they will ever experience. 

Jim meets him halfway, stopping inches before Bones and together they find each other. It’s real. And perfect. 

-

Jim and Bones own a bookstore.

They talk about their problems on the couch after hours. Chekov gave them the alcohol as a finally-getting-your-heads-out-of-your-asses gift. There’s no need for them to drink alone anymore. There’s not even a real reason to drink period. 

They learn to read each other the way they learn to read books, comfortably, happily, and like they could never stop. 


	52. Friday Night Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday Night Lights AU

On Friday nights, everyone is able to forget what Jim Kirk did the rest of the week.

As long as he got that pigskin to the running back, called the plays right, and followed Pike’s lead, most people in Dillon could forget who he was fucking, what abuse Frank had screamed at him so the whole town could hear, or why his mama had left. 

But to Leonard McCoy, the Dillion Panther’s Wide Receiver, Jim is so much more than that. 

They’re leaning against Leonard’s beat up pickup in the parking lot after practice. Leo also parks far away from the field as if he knows Jim will likely come up to him afterwards and want to do naughty things to his already sweaty body. 

But tonight, two nights before the big game, Jim’s kisses are sweet, slow. 

“You’re not worried anyone’s going to see, darlin?" 

Jim smiles as he breaks away, his eyes wide with mischief like he had just changed the play mid-game and expected everyone to catch up. “Let ‘em.”

Leo wishes that after the game when the families and girlfriends run onto the field and the town’s fans crowd around Pike and Sulu and Chekov and Jim’s just standing off to the side, taking it all in, that Leo could walk over to him, peel his gloves off and helmet, throw it on the turf and kiss him. In front of everyone. He doesn’t care about the scandal, about the damage to his reputation, his scholarship to Ole Miss. He just wants to show everyone that Jim is not broken, not a lonely boy who can throw a football real good. He wants to give Dillion something to gossip about other than the Kirk tragedy and Jim’s likelihood of failure if he can’t get his act together. 

He wishes they can stop being Quarterback and Wide Receiver, 42 and 11, and just be Jim and Bones. 


	53. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim doesn't realize what home means. Until he does.

It wasn’t his mother’s hand he clung to as she led him to the Kindergarten classroom door, whispering words of  _hero’s son_ and  _too smart_ and  _poor kid_ following them. 

It was his brother’s. 

With big blue eyes, everyone was always telling him how big and blue his eyes were, he blinked up at his brother, back straight, big book bag banging behind him. He wanted to go to school like Sam. Wanted to be a big boy like Sam. 

Sam was home when his mother was not. 

Sam’s stories of their father, always whispered like the words he wasn’t supposed to hear  _so sad, pitiful, tragic,_ were bright and full. Filling up their mom’s silences, filling up her absences, filling up her when she thought they were asleep she’d peak on them under the fort that Sam made them and almost smile, like she could just remember how. 

And then Frank came. Uncle Frank with his too loud words  _piece of shit, asshole, worthless brat._ And touching everything Sam said was Dad’s until Sam’s room was bursting with all the things that he didn’t want Uncle Frank to touch. 

But it was still Sam and Jim, together, hiding from Frank in the barn, out in the field, in town. 

“Those Kirk boys, again.” The shopkeepers would say, smiles rueful and a little sad, telling the boys to mind themselves and be good now. Everyone knew that Frank was a bastard but everyone also pretended they didn’t. 

And then Sam left. 

The farmhouse wasn’t home. Nowhere was home. Nowhere would ever be home. Not even the promise of a school on a whole other planet,  _for gifted boys like you_ could be home. 

It turned out to be hell. Jim thought he knew hell when Frank was barreling through the farmhouse, when they hadn’t heard from their mother in days, when Sam said  _sorry, I have to go_ and didn’t take Jim with him. 

Hell was Tarsus IV. Hunger fading to fullness with no food in the belly. Dust and a too wide smile of a man who said  _it’s okay, Jimmy, you’re special. I’ll never hurt you._ And then spent the rest of the days, months, proving the opposite. 

He learned to hate the word home, when another social worker, unable to get into contact with his mom, set about finding him a temporary home. Or when he bounced from shitty Iowa town to shitty Iowa town, causing trouble and making another name for himself than  _poor kid._

Home might have been Starfleet. Pike’s offer sounded like a promise of something like it. 

But then he met Bones. Who apparently had a home all his life, tried to make one with an ex-wife, and failed miserably. 

And it wasn’t until then, when he and Bones settled into a crappy apartment off campus, both too old for dorm life, that he started to settle into the idea of making a home with someone. 

And then, Bones became home. 

One morning, Sunday, waking up to grit in his eyes but so fucking happy, no guilt, fear, sadness, pushing through just so happy. And Bones curled beside him, warm and there and for the first time he realized since Sam that home can be a person. 

Home was Bones. 

Wherever they were together and he told Bones that once and the other man laughed and laughed but than kissed him sweetly. 

“You too, darlin’. You’re my home too.”


	54. Hard Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim would get injured in an arm wrestling match on Igitur.

Jim would get injured in an arm wrestling match on Igitur. And Bones would be struck speechless in the planet's surprisingly efficient hospital, at first worried sick and then just embarrassed, when the nurse asks his relationship status with the injured. 

“He’s um-well, he’s my-Captain,” he finally settles on. And jesus, that wasn’t even a hard question. 

Later that night when Bones has kissed it and made it better (the bruise on Jim’s wrist will turn a nasty shade of green over the next couple of days) he pauses while Jim’s getting ready for bed. 

“What are we?”

“Didn’t figure you for existential, this late at night."Jim tilts his head, gives him his famous smirk, and pulls off his black undershirt. Bones is too annoyed to admire the view. 

"I meant between us, dumbass.” he waves his hand between him and Jim in a futile gesture. 

Jim shrugs. “What do you want us to be?”

“You’re my best friend, obviously. But I’ve never thought about it, what do we call each other?”

Jim stands at the edge of the bed, a frown forming. 

“Not lovers…” Bones starts. Jim shakes his head. 

“And boyfriends is too-”

“High school?” Jim suggests. 

It’s his turn to nod. 

Bones sighs, gets up from where he was sprawled and grabs Jim around the waist and pulls him close. “I like husbands better.”

It takes a moment but Jim’s eyes go wide. 

“Was that a pr-”

Bones kisses him before he can say anything else. 

Yes, husbands would work so much better. 


	55. Stockholm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt asked for Stockholm Syndrome AU

Jim always knew this was going to happen. 

People tended to think that he was worth something—to whom he never was able to find out—and was always balls deep in some hostage plot. 

Too bad for Jim that Starfleet didn’t negotiate with terrorists. 

Too bad for the would-be kidnappers that Jim always escaped before they could make their demands. 

But this guy–with the breath that smelled of top-shelf whiskey, shaking hands and days old scruff–he was different. 

Caught Jim with a hypo to the neck just as he was coming out of his favorite bar on Shoreleave. Knuckles red from ending a fight and head swimming with cheap shit. 

He was ready for something but that something wasn’t getting cornered before he could even hail a cab. 

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Jim said. This guy was his keeper, nervous, jittery limbs and a jaw that jumped at every sound. Guy was currently wiping a wet washcloth across Jim’s brow. 

“I’m sorry…I didn’t know you were allergic to it.” Guy said and did he have a bit of a drawl or was that all in his head?

“Jesus, don’t you do your research? I’m allergic to _everything.”_ Of course Jim wasn’t sure that this came out as anything. His tongue was too large for his mouth and his eyes stung from the swinging lightbulb in the dank room. 

“You got numb tongue?” The guy asked. “Shit.”

Jim felt like flipping off but 1) his hands were tied behind his back and 2) He couldn’t lift his limbs. He flailed a bit and fell over to the side where Guy caught him and sucked in a breath. 

“Jesus, man. Your hands!”

“You did this to me!” Jim screamed, looking over his shoulder at his swelling digits. _Fuckkkk._

He was going to die. This fucktard was going to succeed in killing him because of an allergy. Jesus he hoped the dude shot him before this was over. 

“Just shoot me, dude. Get it over with.” This didn’t sound much better either.

Guy shot him a look in the middle of pacing. Sounded like he was saying: “I didn’t bring a counter drug. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck”

Jim couldn’t manage an eye roll but he wanted to. Instead he passed out.

* * *

He woke up to the softest fucking pillow he ever had the pleasure of laying his head on and he felt better than he had in weeks. 

Until he opened his eyes. 

“Keep your head down. And sip this.” A glass was brought to his lips. 

“Son of a bitch-kid!” The glass shattered to the floor and Jim slammed the dude, he could barely see with puffy eyes, and reached down to pick up a shard. 

“You shoulda killed me when you had the chance, asshole.”

But the guy didn’t tense up. Didn’t fight him or anything. He just slumped a little and inched forward. 

The glass cut into the man’s neck. 

“You kill me, just do me a favor, alright?” The man rasped. 

“Are you shitting me?” Jim blew out his breath, aware of the glass that was biting into his socked feet, of the way a gentle breeze was raising the hairs at the back of his neck. “You want a favor from the guy you kidnapped and drugged?”

“They have my daughter. I just want her back. Please. I’m sorry-”

Guy’s face crumples and Jim almost drops the glass. 

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not, just. Her name is Joanna. Could you-you could find her. Please.”

Jim’s made bad decisions before. This might be the worst. He eases up on the guy and pulls him off the wall, swipes a hand across his burning eyes and breathes out. 

“Together. We’ll find her together.”


	56. Caffeine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes–when Bones hasn’t reset his replicator fix all the (unhealthy) awesome modifications Jim’s made to it–--Jim can make his own iced coffee.

Sometimes–when Bones hasn’t reset his replicator fix all the  ~~unhealthy~~ awesome modifications Jim’s made to it–Jim can make iced coffee. 

It tastes like the one from that corner deli in Riverside--in the oldest building in town-- that Jim used to get in his probably misspent youth. 

And like back then, when he used prowl the long stretches of road surrounded by cornfields in the shadow of the shipyard, he feels invincible on a little bit of caffeine. 

Bones says he’s never seen anyone have such a strong reaction to caffeine in his life–but like many other things about Jim, he can’t be surprised. 

Jim can talk faster than anyone can come close to on that old Terran show Gilmore sisters or some shit–he dated a girl once who was obsessed and in turn he became obsessed–while inhaling coffee. 

He can also come up with his best–read, most dangerous–ideas. 

Bones calls him goddamn insouciant on caffeine. Jim calls himself better. 

But the crash. 

The crash is bad. 

Like when Jim drank two large ice coffees he had both Carol and Chekov sneak into the hospital when he was recovering. And he was able to just make it through therapy–he walked like three feet, yay–before he fell, bone-tired and limbs useless. Bones caught him. Just like he always did. 

He didn’t even need to be there. He wasn’t Jim’s physical therapist, he didn’t have a degree in it or even the necessary credentials to help Jim. 

But no one could get Kirk moving like Bones. Or pick him up like Bones. 

And so while caffeine makes Jim feel invincible for a few minutes. Bones is what helps him feel alive. 


	57. Levels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the prompt: "Bones gets alien whammied & won't wake up. Jim has tried everything including kissing the sleeping beauty to wake him up, but nothing works. So they enter Bones' dreams layer by layer, but the rabbit hole leads deeper & deeper into Bones. Jim finds out more than he expected about the man he thought he knew better than himself."

**Layer One**

Jim rubs his temples, black spots flooding his vision like spilt old Terran ink. 

“Can you repeat that, Spock?’ He asks his first officer from his spot, where he’s been rooted beside Bones’ bedside for four weeks.

“Of course.” The Vulcan’s voice is as empathetic as it may ever be. “I was just eluding to one of the Vulcan Science Academy’s projects, taken from 21st Century Terra military experiments. I believe it might help in Leonard’s case.”

Jim looks from his first officer’s face to Bones. He’s never seen such a blank expression on his husband’s face, even in sleep, even while treating Jim in the medbay, he’s never looked so vacant. Out of every terrifying thing Jim’s seen and done, it’s this that will haunt him, he knows. It’s unnatural. Which is why he’ll do _anything_ to make it stop. 

“Okay.”

“Your answer should probably be given only when you hear the risks inherent in the procedure, Jim.” Spock adds. 

“If our situations were reversed, what do you think Bones would say right now, Spock?”

He sees Spock swallow, the bob of his adam’s apple, the narrowing of his eyes, before he nods, firmly and stands. “I will talk to Sarek about getting a PASIV.”

–

_“I don’t like this.”_

“You don’t like anything.”

_“Dream sharing, kid? It’s not worth it.”_

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ _I’ll never forgive you if something happens to you.”_

 _“_ I have to try, Bones.”

He’s suspended in near sleep, head pressed against Bones’ pillow, his scent barely lingering and the pillow cool and soft to the touch. He took medication M’Benga pressed into his palm, a few yellow pills to help him shut off. He’s taken them before, in the hospital after Khan. But he had Bones then, to rub circles in the space between his shoulder blades, to kiss forehead when he bolted up in bed, sure his body was burning from the inside, trapped on the wrong side of the Warp Core’s glass containment. He can hear Bones as if they were tangled together, the way they might be in the early morning hours before a high level mission, each worried in their own ways. 

Bones would disapprove of what Jim’s about to do, no doubt. Bones would yell, growl, grab Jim’s face between his gentle palms and beg him not to do it. 

But Jim can’t leave Bones behind in his own mind. 

Because Bones never left Jim behind. Not even in Jim’s own dreams.

–

They decide on a neutral planet, rampant with illegal activity, popular for the way it always manages to past Starfleet inspections. 

The Vulcans manufacture the PASIV and research the data done with dreamsharing experimentation. 

They do not, however, produce the drug somnacin. 

Somnacin has been illegal for almost 300 years. 

You can get it most places, sold on the Black market, dealt like old Terran drugs used to be, sold to addicted dream addicts who can’t fall asleep without the compounds surging through their system. 

“It’s highly addictive.” Spock says as he handles a small vial. 

Jim smiles sadly. “That’ll be the least of our worries.”

From what the VSA scientists reported and what Ellis, a stooped older lady who runs a dream den, they might need to go a few levels down for this. Whatever that being did to Bones, it locked him up tight. And this PASIV, this compound, might be the key to getting him back. 

“A few levels down should do.” Ellis draws out a line from the PASIV and hooks it around her wrinkled hands. 

“A few levels, as you say, will trap them in limbo.” Prisu, the Vulcan scientist says. 

Ellis’ lips quirk “Haven’t you heard of the men who climbed out of limbo? They’ll be fine.”

“They are inexperienced. This will kill them.”

Ellis swings her head to Jim. “You gonna let this kill you, Kirk?”

Jim doesn’t say that he’s read enough on this to know that if they go far enough down, he’ll kick Spock out and lose himself down the levels until he finds Bones. He doesn’t care if he gets caught in Limbo. He just doesn’t want to leave Bones alone. He can’t. 

“No, ma’am.” He says, realizing he’s hesitated for too long.

Spock tilts his head, question lingering between them when there’s a knock on the door. 

Uhura files in, Scotty peering behind her, Chekov bouncing behind them and Sulu holding up the rear. 

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Jim asks, pushing past Prisu and Ellis, past Spock who doesn’t look surprised. 

“Dream sharing.” Scotty breathes as he takes in the PASIV on the table between the two cots, the vials stacked beside it, the lines wrapped up in Ellis’ hands. “Can’t let you having all the fun?”

Uhura points a finger at Spock’s chest. “Spock Prime ratted you two out. Were you really going to do this without us?”

 _Risk. Will you risk your crew, Jim? For me?_ He hears Bones say. Bones who still lay prone in the bed nearest to the cot Jim was about to get on. 

“I can’t-”

“I’d watch before you say something heroic and selfless there, Jimmy boy.” Scotty grins. “We can’t let you do this alone. Len’s our friend too.”

Ellis sighs. “We’re going to need a bigger PASIV.”

–

There’s no logic in dreams. 

It’s bizarre that the VSA would study it so intensely. But after the dream sharing trails of 2015, it makes sense that the Federation backed away from it, afraid of what dream sharing could do to an already broken world. Dream sharing, was the hobby of rich businessman, a revenge tatic for shrewd people who wanted to steal secrets from one another, a mind crime of the most intimate order. 

The Vuicans were the only ones to claim it, but only for practical use. 

But Jim can see why it’s so alluring, an enticing gamble for adrenaline junkies, criminals, anyone bored with commonplace thievery. This is the epitome of adventure. Unexplored territory. 

“Final frontier, my ass.” Jim mutters as he twirls in the field.

He knows he’s dreaming and yet he doesn’t. He just feels…more invincible. 

“Great, that’s all we need.” A voice behind him says around a–affectionate?–sigh. 

Jim whips around, wind striking his face like a slap, to see Chris Pike. 

“Admiral?”

Pike rolls his eyes. “Formality, Jim, really?”

“How’re you here?”

“No one ever taught you about projections, I gather.”

Jim shakes his head. 

“We’re in McCoy’s head. You’re dreaming his dream. Somehow,” Pike opens his arms to the expanse of fields around them. “He’s dreamed me in.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Pike smiles sadly. “That would be too easy.”

“Could you at least point me in the right direction?”Jim says

“I’m afraid not, kiddo.”

“Then what the hell can you do?” Jim is suddenly angry. Very fucking angry. This is a dream. He’s in a fucking dream trying to find his husband who may be dying and he’s talking to his projection of his dead mentor. Fuck fuck fuck. 

“JIM!”

“KEPTIN?”

“James T. Kirk, I swear if you went another level down without us!”

Pike grins. “You’re crew is looking for you.”

Jim walks past the field, toward a clearing. The packed dirt turns into the gravel of a farmhouse drive way. 

His team are at the edge of the driveway, looking up at the sky. It’s blue, cloudless. 

“You looking for me?” Jim rubs a hand down his face.

“We thought you got lost.” Sulu claps his shoulder. 

“Lookie what I can do!” Scotty says and flicks his wrist, a flask appears. 

Uhura bats it away. “We have more important things to do.”

Scotty stares down at the flask and blinks. “Aye.”

Spock turns to JIm and looks at him like a parent might look at another when dealing with their small brood of children. Long suffering. 

JIm wants to say thank you. Or you can leave now. Or please don’t leave me until I find Bones. 

Instead, he turns on his heel with one glance toward where Pike was and then toward the house. 

“Hey! Keptin, where are you going?” Chekov is the first to catch up with him. 

“I have a feeling.”

“I wish we were going on more than a feeling.” Uhura says. 

Jim falls back into step with her and links arms. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes." She rolls her eyes. "God help me.”

He nods. “I can find Bones. And that house? It was his childhood home. It’s the best place to start.”

And so they take the steps up the porch, Jim trying to ignore the way his stomach twists as they open the door, knowing that they’re grossly unprepared but also that there’s nothing else they can do. 

Bones might never forgive him for risking himself. But Jim would never forgive himself for letting Bones go.  


	58. A Promise

“Remember what you promised me." 

Bones’ voice is gruff as hell and his facial expression could generously be called, furiously shot-to-pieces. It’s as if someone shattered his head and taped it back together: a lip of grief, an eye twitch of anxiety, a forehead scrunch of angry. 

Jim’s been chipper for the past twenty-three hours. He can’t find it in himself to not be. He can’t worry about how he might feel or about what might happen. Starfleet never apologizes to you when they give you an order but this time they did. High risk and extremely top-secret might as well just be labelled as suicide mission. 

Jim’s been on those before. But never when Bones knew about it. 

But Jim made a promise right when they get married. Whispered it in his ear on the alter, kissed it into Bones’ skin every day since and tried to uphold it. 

_I’m never going to leave you. Not if I can’t help it._

They just got into an argument last night about the types of things Jim can’t help. 

He never knew what a promise was before Bones. His mom sure as hell didn’t keep them. But Bones made it simple. Showed Jim that living doesn’t have to be all about surviving one moment after the next. How love isn’t something that gets stolen away the minute you express it. 

And for that, and a million other reasons, Jim’s got to do this.

 _This_ being neutralizing a threat to the Federation, immediate and worrisome enough that Jim’s working with Section 31 again. 

The Crew, his bridge crew that is, doesn’t know that he has Section 31 officers on board the ship. They don’t know how many times he was recruited. They don’t know that one time, he didn’t turn them down

He never wants then to.

If he dies on this mission, probably like Starfleet thinks he will, maybe someone will tell Bones. He deserves to know. But Jim can’t tell him. 

Can’t tell him that when Bones was dying and there were no other options, Jim went to them and traded his service for a cure. They say, "Jump”, he asks, “Off what?”

He never thought to make Bones promise him too. 

So he kisses Bones like it’s the last time on the transporter pad. He hears the titter of the crew and the throat clearing of his Section 31 comrades, the emotionless bastards. 

“Be right back,” he breathes into Bones’ mouth. “I promise.”

No matter the condition. Maybe Bones can put him back together. 

And then he’s gone. 

-

Leonard doesn’t want the folded fucking Federation flag. They can burn it for all he cares. 

They’ll no doubt give it to him in a few weeks. 

Chekov and Scotty hacked into a secure feed. Jim and his team are officially MIA. 

And all he can think about is the folded flag that Jim purposely didn’t point out on a trip back to the farmhouse in Iowa. The first and last. 

Fuck him. 

Spock Prime came aboard a few days ago, asking to speak with the Doctor only. Blamed himself. If he had given Jim the cure (what fucking cure?) he wouldn’t have had to make a deal with the devil. 

Took him only a few hours to connect the dots at the end of a very lovely bottle of Romulan Ale. The remains of which are shattered on the other side of their quarters. He managed to knock over most of their picture frames too. Felt a bit successful and petulant after it. 

“No news is good news. Especially with Jim.” the Old Vulcan told him. He spent a lot of time swallowing bile after that. This guy didn’t know his Jim. And he said as much before he kicked him out. Kicked Spock and Uhura, Carol and who knows who else out too. 

Don’t need them. They didn’t make a promise they knew they were just going to break. 

He falls asleep at some point. Ignoring the chiming of the door and the buzzing of his comm. 

-

Bones is slumped over in a worse position than the night they decided to share their secrets. Well, most of them. Jim couldn’t swallow anything other than cheap beer and Bones kept pouring. 

Turns out guilt feels just a bit better when they share it. 

He wants to run over, kiss the sleep away from his husband’s face, and maybe the grief already etched in the lines of his forehead. That would be easy. But Jim’s heard a bit about what went down in the last few months–and Christ he didn’t think this was going to take that long–and knows that this isn’t that simple. 

So he kneels, very gently in front of the chair and lifts Bones’ head. Smooths away his hair, kisses his forehead, rubs a hand down the back of his neck. 

“Hey,” he says softly when Bones stirs. 

“Jus dreamin’.” Bones slurs, full on twang and it would be adorable if Jim’s heart wasn’t shattering like Bones’ face when he first left. 

“Not dreaming. I’m home. I’m so sorry.” He kisses Bones as lightly as possible, the corner of the mouth, back of the ear, all his favorite places. 

Bones mumbles and falls back asleep. “Not dreaming.”

Jim sighs, sees the broken pieces of the bottle across the room and bends to pick them up. 

He deserves this. To be thought of as just a dream. 

He goes to sleep in the corner of the couch, his whole body aching, his head pounding as if he’s already sharing in Bones’ hangover. 

-

Not a dream. Not a dream. Not a dream. 

He wakes with a start, like when you dream you’re falling and suddenly as you’re just about to hit the ground, you’re awake.

Nausea is no match for realizing it _was_ a dream. 

Jim’s not here. 

He’s about to fucking collapse on the floor, pathetic, as if someone cut the puppet master’s strings when-

“Hey, Bones.”

He barrels into Jim. He wants to punch him, kill him, for this. But he’s here, he’s alive, he’s here. He promised, he’s back. 

They’re breathless and panting and Jim’s face is wrecked. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He’s babbling and all Bones can do is grab the back of his head and pull his face forward. He remembers the type of kiss Jim gave him when he laughs and figures it’s about time to return the favor. 

“I hate you. I love you.” He manages to get out as Jim lips mangle in his own, as teeth smash together. 

“I’m sorry, I love you. I promise.”

Bones finds himself nuzzling his face into Jim’s neck, smelling the scent he was deprived of, kissing under his jaw. “I promise too.”

 


	59. Pen and Paper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim knows his situation is FUBAR when Bones calls him Baby. Or sweetheart.

Bones hasn’t picked up a pen and paper since before med school. 

He used to prefer writing his notes in long hand, chicken scratch on a creamy lined paper made things make  _sense._ But that was beat out of him sometime around his pre-med classes when a girl, it was Jocelyn, arched her eyebrow and looked pointedly at his pen and paper as if to say,  _seriously, you old coot?_

But in the first years at Starfleet, crammed on a extra long twin sized bed with only Jim Kirk for company, he relearns the love for pen and paper. 

Jim carries a pencil behind his ears, it switches every day, and a notepad in his back pocket. On him it looks cool. It looks right. It makes sense again. He jots down lists and calculations and notes to himself,  _buy milk, stupid._

Bones spends the minutes after Jim falls asleep crossing out all the stupids and idiots and dumbasses, realizing that the only person who should be allowed to call Jim any of that is Bones himself. And with affection. Always affection. 

So it doesn’t surprise him when some weeks into their relationship, it’s new and started completely by accident. They kissed under the stars, of all things, and Bones is dopey and romantic and Jim is cocky and beautiful. 

He picks up a piece of paper he finds tucked between Jim’s things, grabs the nub of a pencil (no matter how many times Bones nearly has a heart attack, he doesn’t stop chewing things and trying to choke himself) and writes a note. 

A love letter. 

A love note. 

Whatever. 

It’s sentimental and Jim will probably hate it, make fun of him, but he feels the words on the tips of his finger tips, like little happy bugs of creativity, hoping to loop together into words. 

Years later, he’ll find the note tucked into the pages of  _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--_ a book he bought for Jim’s unbirthday that same year and it’s easy to fall in love with the kid all at once and all over again.


	60. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleeping Beauty AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like my ficlets and want more, feel free to prompt me on tumblr: http://captainkirkmccoy.tumblr.com/

“You can’t make this easy for me, can you kid?” Len muttered as he slashed through vines and overgrown bush, the foliage was honestly the least of all his problems but still a fucking nuisance. This whole planet was one big vine tangle intent on slashing him to death. If the idea of turning around and leaving Jim alone didn’t make him physically nauseous, he might have. 

Of course, he had to go fall in love with Prince James. _The same_ Prince James that Len had been betrothed to the moment he was born; the same Prince James the evil King Nero cursed all those years ago. The one that the royal court of the Federation tittered over and speculated about on planets far and wide, bemoaning the misfortune of King George’s family. 

How was Len supposed to know that the ridiculously handsome young man living on the farthest planet from their home was the missing Prince? Or that Len’s one attempt at rebellion led to exactly what was supposed to be?

But, as his mother said every time his King father did something foolish: You can’t help who you fall in love with. 

So he was tromping into the ruins of the castle, on a planet stuck in Terra’s medieval period, armed with some magical fucking sword–Jim would probably find that a perfect euphemism for his other fleshier sword–and running to escape the Evil King Nero because some Vulcan freed him and told him he must. He’s having a great fucking day. 

And then he sees it. A fucking tomb of vines encasing one prone figure and if Len suddenly feels like he’s been dropped out of his own ship’s airlock he tries not to show it. Nero could be around anywhere and even though the Vulcan said he’d hold him off, Len can’t be sure. 

He charges forward because it seems like a good idea at the time and brings the sword down on as many vines as he can, ignoring the way the thorns from the roses bite into his hands or slash into his clothes. 

Jim looks dead underneath the vines and Len thinks that maybe it would be better if he never woke up from Nero’s sleeping curse and they could both drift off together. Maybe they’d find each other there, wherever you go when you never wake up. 

He’s shaking and drops his sword as he leans forward to press his lips against this Prince who was once meant for him and now is again but for such different reasons. Choice is a better way to fall in love with someone rather than being forced. But maybe this was all fate’s forces pushing them together. If he believed in that sort of thing. 

He’s not expecting anything from the kiss but as Jim gasps awake, eyes wild and body going rigid, Len’s eyes well up with tears. He’d accuse himself of being such a fucking sap but he’s too busy climbing into the vine made tomb and pulling Jim against him, muttering things that are even sappier than the wet on his face. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I found you. I’m sorry.” He has no idea what he’s apologizing for but the Kid is heaving and shaking so hard that Len’s afraid he might be having a seizure. 

“Bones?” Jim rasps and even though Len detests that stupid nickname he’s grateful for it and starts kissing Jim again and again, on his jaw and his neck and behind his ear and not caring that this probably woke up the whole kingdom and that in a few minutes they’ll have company. They can wait. 


	61. Camping

The best day of Jim’s life happened by accident. 

Someone, probably Sulu, maybe Chekov, decided they should go camping. 

Spock said, “While I appreciate the attempt at a group bonding experience, I do not find shorts and tents aesthetically pleasing.”

Uhura nudged him in the shoulder. 

Scotty said, “As long as I’ve got my whisky, I’m good.” To which Keenser gave a firm nod in agreement. 

Bones barked out a laugh when all eyes turned to him. “Hell no.”

Jim kissed that spot behind his ear that makes Bones shiver. “Hell yes.”

And so a day later, they all went camping. 

Jim only had two allergic reactions, they only lost Chekov to the woods once, and no one shot at them. 

That night, bundled under blankets and Bones’ stern— yet affectionate—glare, Jim sat down at the campfire and pulled out his guitar. 

Uhura whistled. “No way, Kirk. You never mentioned the guitar before.”

Despite the fact that his throat had threatened to close an hour ago and Bones almost had to carry him to civilization, Jim grinned. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Apparently,” Bones muttered. 

“Hush you.”

And he started plucking at the guitar. It didn’t matter that the song was well over three hundred years ago, or that Spock had never heard of it or that Uhura didn’t like this type of music or that Bones hated to sing in public. It just worked, their voices rising and falling as the crackle and pop of the logs burning in the fire and the crickets joining in their own nightly melody. 

It was flawed. It was perfect. It was his team. 

There’s a picture in his quarters that he would rather display a million times more than the fugly one some Starfleet photographer took when he was given his ship. It’s the one with his guitar and his family, their mouths hanging open and eyes screwed up tight around the campfire, singing with reckless abandon as they’re caught in a moment far less intense but just as important.


	62. Stolen Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stolen dance. We deserve one of those, don’t you think?”

Jim’s not sure who’s having the worst night, Bones–who is skulking by the refreshments, at arms length of any dignitaries, permanent bitch face brokering little small talk–or Jim, who’s blisters will have blisters, has gotten no less than three proposals, and has danced all night. 

It’s not like they didn’t prepare for this. 

They knew their decision to not go public with their relationship was going to cause some…discomfort. 

Starfleet admirals and top brass gossip like third graders on the playground, especially at galas like this when hundreds of representatives from federation planets gather to save face, parade their heroes around and try to match them. Jim doesn’t want to be matched. He is, already, matched. 

It’s the end of the night, the wives have kicked off their shoes, the men are only pretending to still be tipsy, and the lights are starting to raise. 

Someone, out of pity for the younger set perhaps, cuts the Orchestra and cues up some retro pop, the sort of thing Jim goes ape shit over.  The sort of thing Bones reluctant loves about him. 

He excuses himself from the little circle he’s been swept into and dances over to Bones. Yes, dances. He doesn’t care what attention he attracts. He could dance naked on the tables, hopping and kicking the plates off and no one would care. Much.

“How drunk are you?” Bones asks, eyebrows raised. His mouth is screwed up tight, trying not to grin. He’s failing. 

“Not even a bit.” Jim jumps up and down in anticipation of the chorus, his favorite part. He’s thinking of belting it aloud. Bones might punch him. 

“Then what are you doing?”

Jim bows, the way he was taught to at the Academy in How To Be A Gentlemen 101. “May I have this dance?”

Bones shakes his head. “Hell no.”

“It’s our song!”

Roll of the eyes. “We don’t have a song.”

“Listen to the lyrics.” Jim places his hands on Bones’ lips, feels him stiffen. He moves them in time to the beat. “Stolen dance. We deserve one of those, don’t you think?”

Out of the corner of his mouth, Bones says, “People are staring.”

Jim leans forward. “Let ‘em.”

He tugs, one quick swift motion, and suddenly they’re moving onto the dance floor. He starts moving, as fucked up as he can imagine, all jerky movements, hands up and waving. Bones laughs out loud. “You’re an idiot.”

But he starts to sway. 

By the second chorus, they’ve got the rhythm down. Someone’s turned up the music. Some are clapping. He thinks he hears Scotty whistle. 

_I want you. We can bring it on the floor. Never danced like this before. We don’t talk about it Dancing on, do the boogie all night long._

Jim’s shouting the music, words swallowed as people flood the dance floor. He thinks he sees Barnett jumping around, pulled on by his wife. And Uhura and Scotty. Carol and Sulu and Chekov and sea of other people bobbing around. 

“Look what you did, Bones.” He cocks his head and shouts. 

Bones rolls his eyes again, the affectionate version. “It was all you, kid.”

Jim hopes someone took a picture. He wants a medal for this. Bringing beings together since 2233. Booyah. 

And as the crowd pushed toward them, jostled by twisting and dancing bodies, elbows and shoulders, legs and heads moving in time to a very old and catchy hit, Bones kisses JIm, slowly, perfectly, just for them, in plain sight. 

Who cares who sees, anyway?


	63. Snow

On Shoreleave they occasionally get stuck in places where it snows.

These places are green and dry in one moment and then blizzard like and snow covered, with drifts making it hard for the shuttles to get off the ground.

Jim turns into a kid about ten seconds after the snow rises to their window, dragging Bones out into the weather while the other man grabs gloves and hats and whatever else he can find. “Wait, you infant! You’ll get frostbite. Put some damn gloves on.”

And the Crew frolic in the snow, carrying their own memories out into the cold with them. Chekov says snow was invented in Russia. Spock blinks up at the flakes, the first time he’s ever seen them. “Fascinating,” he whispers. as one lands on his nose. Uhura lightly brushes it off and pulls him down—the Vulcan bundled so carefully in jackets and layers that he falls and almost bounces—to make snow angels. 

They drink hot cocoa, well, the equivalent of hot cocoa on the planet (and definitely spiked with something that isn't Starfleet regulated) and Scotty tries to fashion a Snow Enterprise just outside their door. And even though they’re stuck, even though they don’t know for how long, it’s kind of perfect. 


	64. Two Months

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jim, what did you do with all my clothes?”

“Jim, what did you do with all my clothes?”

“Honest answer?”

Bones nodded. 

“Burned them.”

All Bones could do was raise an eyebrow.

“Two months, Bones. They didn’t smell like you anymore. They smelled like…” Jim trailed off. Two months ago, Bones took a position on a cruise liner. It was Starfleet’s joint project with the government and the President herself begged for the Dr. McCoy to personally help train the ground staff on ship life and sick bays. No one counted on the terrorists. No one counted on McCoy, a Doctor known to be passive when his husband was aggressive, to save all 2,000 lives onboard. Only to be taken hostage. 

Jim wanted no reminders. Nothing leftover. And there wouldn’t be. Except the medal the President gave his husband, the scar on his side where one of the terrorists tried to gut him and the space dust the men became after Jim was done with them.


	65. Trucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McKirk AU

It’s lonely out on the road only if you let it be. Every trucker knows that. 

Thank God, that’s all Leonard McCoy wants in life is a space to lay down at night, some money to buy food and the occasional tab in a bar and a destination. Lord knows he would have nowhere else to go. Ex-wife took whole damn country in the divorce. All he really has is the road. And how fucked up is that?

He’s on his way past Iowa when he sees the kid. He doesn’t pick up hitchhikers as a rule. Not because of any sense of self-preservation but because they usually want to talk. And he doesn’t want to talk. If he wanted to do that, he’d find a job at a clinic somewhere. 

But it’s raining and fuck if he doesn’t understand having a shit day. So he pulls over. The kid’s wearing a flimsy sweatshirt hood and a leather jacket, ripped jeans that look like they were ripped from use and not bought for more than McCoy’s paycheck.

He reaches over and pushes open the door to the cab and watches the kid grab up his two bags and climb inside.

“Thanks, man. Thank so much.”

Jesus, Kid’s got blue eyes that take piercing to a whole other level. McCoy doesn’t need that. Needs to be able to drop the kid off when it’s raining and forget about him. But these blue eyes are unforgettable. 

“You’re welcome. Where you headed?”

Kid shrugs. “Wherever it is when you get sick of me.”

McCoy huffs and tries to hide the quirk of his lips into a smile. He pulls back onto the empty highway and tries not to turn back to the kid too much. Doesn’t need anything else to stick in his head after he drops him off, he’s got too much in there to knock around, a breathtaking kid who looks at least five years his junior is not one of the things he wants to ruminate on for hours at a time. Not on this job.


	66. A Promise Kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many things Leonard wants to say but doesn’t know where to start.

There are many things Leonard wants to say but doesn’t know where to start. 

“You-” He starts, but something in the slow rise and fall of Jim’s chest stops him. 

“Why-” That doesn’t work either. 

“How-”

He nearly shoves his fist into his mouth. The way he did in the supply closet of Starfleet Medical as he slumped against the shelves and allowed himself ten seconds to break down. Just ten. He counted. 

“If this doesn’t work. And his last moments are yours to keep and me to speculate about. I will kill you.”

He gives Spock a sidelong glance. The Vulcan’s jaw popped with his barely restrained control. He had been shaking when he shoved Khan’s unconscious form into Sickbay, his hands forming fists scraped green and raw. 

“I apologize, Doctor.”

He was silent. He didn’t expect more. 

“Jim once made me promise him. He was inebriated and you had been recovering from the concussion after the Valarian incident.” Spock pauses and turns to face Leonard fully. He looks like shit, like Leonard himself most look like. He doesn’t feel bad for forcing this conversation. If Leonard cannot destroy worlds with his grief, he can work up a Vulcan. “He made me promise that if he were ever in a situation where it did not look like he would survive, to not inform you, if you are not already there.”

Leonard chokes. “How could he say that? I  _always_ will save him.”

“I believe it is sentiment. He realizes that you are passionate man who will no doubt blame yourself if you cannot do anything. He wishes to spare you the pain.”

“And not being there with him? Hearing that he was dead minutes before you bring me his goddamn body bag? That’s better?”

“Sentiment is rarely logical, Doctor. Neither is love.”

Leonard looks away then. At Jim; his best friend, Captain, Love of Leonard’s life and the cause of too much heartbreak. 

He’s speechless once again with no anchor to a conversation less painful. He lets the silence buoy them to their grief, carrying them along until Jim can join them again.


	67. Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It scares Bones that sometimes he so desperately wishes that he could travel back in time.

It scares Bones that sometimes he so desperately wishes that he could travel back in time. 

It scares him because of all the things he would change—important, monumental things, like the Kelvin, his father’s death—he would rather elect to go back in time to hug a twelve-year-old Jim Kirk. 

To show the kid that he’s worth it, to help him become even more resilient, to take him somewhere far away from even the thought of Tarsus. He would do anything for the kid. 

And that scares him, sometimes. 

Until it doesn’t. Because he fell in love and he learned to not be afraid of that.

There’s more things to be terrified of in their lives but love isn’t one of them. 


	68. Relationship Status

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time he and Jim have a serious conversation about their relationship, whatever the status may be, the words almost die in his throat and crumble as he bites down on what he was just about to say.

The first time he and Jim have a serious conversation about their relationship, whatever the status may be, the words almost die in his throat and crumble as he bites down on what he was just about to say.

He was about to say it could never work.

_I’m your CMO…Or I will be._

_We’ve got too much of a good thing going already, kid._

_I’m worried I’ll just fuck this up._

_What if you leave me?_

_I’m no good._

The truth is, whether Jim wanted him to see or not, the kid’s been shattered. He’s like the broken vase that was in his Nana’s house, the one he knocked over while tossing a ball he wasn’t supposed to have in the sitting room. It didn’t break as badly as it could have and he was able to glue the pieces back together, but if you really looked at it, you could see where it had broken. And just how fragile those pieces were. 

Jim’s the same way. 

He can see the breaks in his easygoing facade just as easy as that vase. 

And he doesn’t want to be the one who fractures him. 

He knows what Jim would say:

_Don’t flatter yourself, Bones._

_Let’s give it a shot._

_What do we have to lose?_

And Leonard’s just as broken too. 

Maybe, just maybe they could put their pieces back together. And maybe like a broken bokne, Bones has healed too many times (on Jim and so many other cadets), they’ll be stronger for it.


	69. New Year's Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s…” Jim says as they walk across campus.

“Let’s…” Jim says as they walk across campus.

“Let’s what?” Bones asks. It’s fucking cold out. He worked a double last night and all he wants to do is lie in bed, with a pillow over his ears to muffle the sounds of cadets partying on his floor. His New Year’s plans didn’t include following Jim Kirk around campus. 

Jim pauses and Bones walks a few feet before realizing Jim even stopped. He wants to yell at the kid, tell him to fuck off and head back to the warm dorm room, but he’s got such an expression on his face that Bones can’t help but turn back toward him. 

“If all you want is company for getting turned down by Uhura yet again, you can consider the packed bar as-” Bones starts to say but Jim grabs at Bones’ jacket and pulls him in. 

He’s too surprised at Jim’s lips on his, salty and soft, at the way his own mouth opens automatically for the other man’s. His mind stutters for a moment. 

Jim pulls away, a softer version of his usual grin acting like a punctuation mark to what just happened. “Let’s start this year off right.”


	70. Nightmares

Bones used to think that bad dreams were things easily brushed off. That he could wake up and blink the images away. 

He never got them as a kid. A damn lucky thing. Even after his father he was more haunted by the guilt than my any lingering nightmares. 

It was until he was delivered a body bag in his sickbay and unzipped it to reveal one James T. Kirk, perpetual pain in his ass and the love of his life, that he lost sleep to something other than Jim’s flailing sharp elbows and knees (kid kicked in his sleep and often Bones slept on the couch). 

He’d have the nightmares for weeks. Sometimes he would wake up before they got bad and other times he would be frozen as it played out, always a different variation of the body bag scene, always terrifying and heartbreaking. 

Sometimes he dreamed of being next to Spock, pounding on the protective glass that separated the warp core and radiation and  _Jim_ from the rest of the ship. He never asked Spock about Jim’s last words or what had happened down there but his mind was able to create all sorts of scenarios. To fill in the very awful blanks. 

He was still having nightmares when they got on the ship. Ones that he never remembered when he woke up but would creep up on him throughout the day. Hair would stand up on the back of his neck as someone said something that reminded him of it, flashing him back to the dream. Or he would look at a certain empty biobed, see a flash of black, the grey of the radioactive containment suits and his stomach would roll. 

 

He snapped at one of the ensigns after she said dropped a metal tray with hyposprays on it, shocking him as he remembered the way the doors of Sickbay had flown open as the four security team members rushed in followed by a red eyed Scotty. Her gasp reminded him of Carol’s as she sat up in the biobed when Scotty tried and unsuccessfully failed to tell him what happened. 

There were only three people who could kick him out of sickbay. Jim, and he never would, Spock, and he wouldn’t dare, and Nurse Chapel, who pointed toward the doors and glared when he wiped a hand down his face and apologized for barking at the ensign. 

He dutifully left, knowing which battles to pick with the woman, and headed back to his and Jim’s quarters. 

The fight that ensued was not what he needed.

Bones had slept on the couch the past few nights because of the nightmares. He tossed and turned and knew that while Jim would never complain, he was cutting into his husband’s sleep. The Captain was working a few double shifts this week and Jim’s immune system couldn’t take it if he didn’t get sleep. 

He knew Jim thought that Bones was mad at him. But he couldn’t tell Jim about the nightmares. He just wanted to forget about them. Even if that was becoming impossible. 

Apparently when he got his pillow from the bed, the same one that Jim retrieved every morning from the couch, Jim threw his hands up. 

“What the fuck, Bones?”

And Bones isn’t happy about what he did. He isn’t happy at all. But he took one look at Jim and shook his head, grabbing his comm unit from the side table and ripping their door open, walking the few steps down the hallway to the CMO quarters, the rooms they now use for guests. 

He stood in silence, listening to his heart beat and letting his thoughts race-first with anger, then self-pity and finally exhaustion-before sitting rather bonelessly on the couch. 

It wasn’t long until Jim used his override to get in. 

He kneeled down in front of Bones, using one finger to gently tilt his husband’s chin up so that their eyes could meet. 

“Hey,” Jim said, brushing his thumb over Bones’ jaw. “I’m sorry. I overreacted. I know something is up, I’m just worried.”

Bones sighed. “I didn’t mean to worry you, darlin’" 

"Are you okay?” Jim asked, reaching up to kiss Bones softly on his lips. 

“Yeah, I-jesus, it sounds so ridiculous out loud, kid.”

“What is it?” Jim said, his tone the softest it can get, the way he speaks to Bones early in the morning when they just wake up.

“I’m having nightmares.”

Jim got up and sat next to Bones on the couch. He kissed Bones temple, moving his hand so it can card through Bones’ hair. It felt so good. He leaned into it. “About what, babe?”

He wanted to comment about ‘babe’ but knew it wasn’t the place for it. Instead he just looked down at his hands. They shook in his dreams, like they shook when he injected Jim with the serum. "You.“

Jim stilled, his hand pausing midway through Bones hair. 

Bones continued, "Losing you, again. The body bag. The warp core…Fuck. I never used to have nightmares.”

Jim resumed the carding and his voice was hoarse as he spoke. “I’m sorry, Bones.”

“Not your fault, kid.”

“I’ll never leave you again. I can’t promise that, I know, but I can tell you that I will do everything in my power to never put you through that again.”

Bones felt his eyes blur and his throat burn. He could never cry in the dreams. He was always too horrified. He usually ended up gulping for air, too overwhelmed to emote. 

Jim dropped his hand and tangled it with Bones’. “I want you to wake me up when you have a bad dream.”

“What?”

“Wake me up. I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care how many nightmares you have a night. Wake me up. And no more sleeping on the couch.”

“No. Jim. You need your sl-”

Jim shook his head. “Please. Let me do this for you. Let me take care of you like you do for me. If I was having nightmares-”

Bones narrowed his eyes. “Are you?”

Jim shook his head. “Not the point. But if our roles were reversed what would you say?”

“I’d say wake me up." 

Jim smiled, his halfway, sad truth smile. "Then wake me up. I love you and you shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

And after that night and a few more, he woke Jim up. Reluctantly at first. But Jim held him as his breathing settled and the days and nights that followed didn’t carry the dread of bad dreams but the promise of being together.


	71. Come Back Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones is constantly saving Jim from himself--in big and small ways.

“Why don’t you come back home, darlin’?”

The voice, originating from somewhere behind Jim’s left shoulder startled Jim. His head banged against the desk after it slipped from the palm of his hand. “Fuck,” he groaned and his eyes shot open. He had only meant to fall asleep for ten minutes. 

“Can’t. Need to finish transcribing.” He yawned and took the earphones out of his ear, blinking blearily at the computer. 

“You’re dead on your feet, kid. Get a few hours and I’ll wake you up early enough tomorrow to grab your favorite spot.” Bones arm came around Jim’s chest, his hand rubbing gently down Jim’s neck. He sunk back into the touch. 

It was a week since the Enterprise had docked on Earth. A week since the Narada had disappeared into a black hole, exploding as it did so. Jim had come back to a hellish round of debriefings, med bay checkups (courtesy of Bones) and a thesis that was partly unfinished. Not many seniors had decided to resume them, deciding that their field promotions were likely to stick. But Jim wanted, needed, the distraction. Even if he was exhausted. 

When he wasn’t in the library, transcribing interviews and working on the equations he needed to finish the last part of the thesis, he was volunteering around the academy. Classes needed to be taught, repairs needed to be made, younger cadets needed tutoring and mentoring. It was better that he was busy. He could stay on his feet when he was busy. It was when he slowed down that everything got fuzzy. 

“Come on, Jim.” Bones coaxed and pushed back the chair Jim’s pretty sure had his permanent ass print in. He was in his favorite spot, a coveted corner of the library that he once almost fought Cupcake for. Ample lighting, quiet, and close to the vending machines and bathroom. He was fine sleeping here and he was just about to tell Bones this-

“Up.” His CMO commanded. Well, sort of. They wouldn’t get their commissions for another few weeks. 

He allowed himself to be led upstairs and out of the library, Bones only dropping the hands that were firmly rested on Jim’s shoulder and the small of his back, so that he could gather Jim’s work. 

They walked through campus, Jim too tired to notice how empty it was even at 2 am. The stars above were ominous in a way that made Jim shiver in the early May air. He figured he was too tired to be thinking straight. 

Bones helped him undress when they got to their quarters. They had long since pushed the bed together and it was only a matter of getting his boot off until they were curled up in bed. 

“Love you, Bones.” He muttered. It didn’t sound human coming from his mouth, but he had just yawned about five times consecutively. 

“You too, kid,” the other man said and buried his head, nuzzling into Jim’s shoulder. 

He forgot his thesis soon after that and just slept. 


	72. Pirate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim just really wants to be a pirate.

“Don’t-don’t touch it, Jim, dammit.” Bones swatted his finger away which was once again trying to poke the soft black patch around his right eye.

“Arrrgh, matey. I’m Captain James T. Kirk of the pirate ship Enterprise and I’ve come to take your treasure.” Jim waggled his eyebrows at Bones. 

“You are the worst pirate ever and I said don’t touch it, infant!" 

He really wanted to play with the patch. It was cool. His mom never let him dress up as a pirate for halloween no matter how many times he asked as a kid, so this was like fulfilling a dream. But his eye was numb as fuck from where the buzzard alien shoved the laser toward his iris, scratching his cornea. There was probably a better name for them probably but the away team hadn’t stayed long enough to find out after the creatures had tried to claw his away teams faces off. He had managed to beam them out right when one almost detached his eyeball, hence the eyepatch. 

"I am the coolest pirate. And don’t tell Spock but you’d make a better first mate in this instance.”

Bones swatted his hand away again. “Is it because I’m Bones?”

“Totally Bones. Arrrgh.”

“Incorrigible.”


	73. Drafted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim Kirk was Coach Pike’s first draft pick.

Jim Kirk was Coach Pike’s first draft pick. 

He watched the kid all through high school, wouldn’t shut up about him when he brought Leonard on board. 

“Mark my words, McCoy,” he said in the lobby of their hotel room in Riverside, Iowa, the night before their first recruitment meeting with Jim Kirk. “This kid will do amazing things.”

Two years later and one week deep into March Madness and Leonard “Bones” McCoy thinks back to simpler times when he didn’t know who Jim Kirk was. 

“It hurts, Bones.” Jim whined from the med bench, a ice pack pressed around his ankle. He pouted up at the doctor. 

“Lord help me. Did you have to challenge the high schoolers to a game? You know Pike told you to rest that ankle.”

“Wanted to give them something to look forward to,” Jim sighed and winced as Bones took the ice pack off of Jim’s ankle. It was still swollen. 

“You have two nights before you play UCLA. How’re you going to do that  with a twisted ankle, you infant?”

Jim rested his head back against the wall, eyes closed and cocky smirk replacing the tight thin line of pain his mouth had been moments earlier. 

“Kiss it and make it better?”

Jim puckered his lips and Bones swatted at him with a towel. “Not here, Jim. Someone will see!”

Jim opened his eyes. “There’s no one here!”

Bones looked around and saw that no, no one was here in the med office outside of the locker room. Most of the other guys were in the gym with Pike and Spock running drills. 

He bent over Jim, his hands resting on the wall above the player’s head, so that he could tilt his head and let his lips meet Jim. He meant an innocent, quick peck but it grew until they were both breathless, Jim pulling him closer by grabbing at the front of his Stanford cardinal’s polo. 

“Jesus, Jim.” He pulled back as the forward nipped at his lower lip. 

“Miss you. Two more weeks, this is over and it’s you and your comfy couch and crap TV.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “Two more weeks after finals and your win, you mean?”

Jim grinned. “Now who’s being cocky?”

“Just someone who knows you can do it, kid.”

Stanford makes it to the National Championship and they win. 


	74. Biography

Jim decides to write his own biography. 

“So you mean a memoir or an autobiography?” Uhura asks at poker night, grinning at the way that Jim turns green when she wins yet another hand, scooping her hot water credits into her growing pile. 

“No, no, just a biography." 

And so he sits down at his computer and composes each chapter out of order. It’s utter shit, of course, but he borrows from all his favorites and tries to make it as compelling as possible. 

Like the chapter on Bones. 

"The first words I heard from Leonard McCoy was a self-diagnosis of aviophobia and a plea with the lieutenant on board of the shuttle to keep his spot in the head. I was about as hungover as he was, the only difference was that I had blood stains on my shirt and Leonard’s smell was without any clear evidence. He sat down next to me, offered me a hip flask and told me his wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. I took a sip from the hip flask, christened him Bones and knew right then and there that it would be the start of something wonderful. And it was. I’m never wrong. Reader, I married him.”

“Captain, I believe that line has already been used-” Spock said, peering over his shoulder at the PADD Jim was working from. 

“It’s an homage, Spock.”

The book, _The No Win Scenario and Me_ , was published after a disgruntled yeoman found the file and sold it for 2 million credits to a publisher on Risa 3. 

Everyone found it pretty funny, except, of course, Bones. 

“You really thought you’d marry me when you first saw me?”

Jim shrugged and then kissed his husband on the forehead. “Read the rest of the book to find out.”


	75. Chapter 75

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: "Bones passes out on the bridge for some reason and freaks Jim out."

Jim just got done finding the politest way to tell Admiral Komack to suck it when Bones puts a hand on his shoulder. “Kid, can you go one day without pissing off the admiralty?”

Jim twists his head around and grins. “Nope, I try to piss off at least six before breakfast.”

“If you eat breakfast,” Bones shakes his head, reaching out to balance himself on the Captain's chair. 

He doesn’t make it. He falls flat on his face. 

“Bones!”

Jim falls to his knees next to his friend, hands ghosting over Bones back, his shoulders, his head. 

“Captain, I would advise against moving him until we can Doctor M'Benga to assist.”

He’s frozen on the spot but manages to nod. “Yeah, okay.”

“I’ve called down to sickbay,” Uhura says, laying a hand on his shoulder as he sits there,  the cold from the bridge tile spreading from his knees and up his legs. He shivers. 

“Thank you,” he tells them as M'Benga bursts in with Chapel. 

He backs up to let them work and follows them out when they load Bones on a stretcher. 

And all he can think is how this isn’t right. 

-

After Jim paced tracks into the floor outside of sickbay, M'Benga tells him Bones is going to be okay. Just over-exhaustion and dehydration leftover from the planet they were stranded on a day ago. Jim was out for most of it, having been knocked unconscious the first hour of their time on the planet, and no one will tell him what went on. Not Cupcake or Bones or Sulu. 

“Are you sure?”

He peeks out at Bones from the door to sickbay. His stomach is tied up in knots and he feels like he can’t stop twitching. He’s bit a groove into his lower lip and when he closes his eyes he can imagine all the ways M'Benga will tell him Bones isn’t going to make it. 

“I’m sure, Captain. He’ll be just fine.”

“I just-” He takes a deep breath. Starts over. “He’s all I got, Jabilo.”

The other man nods and gives him a small sad smile, before squeezing his shoulder. “It’ll be just fine, Captain.”

He wonders if M'Benga tells Bones the same thing when it’s Jim who is unconscious. 


	76. Tarsus, Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim has a nightmare from Tarsus.

Jim remembers him. 

The guard was named Murray. He always hung out at the fields, leaning lazily against a post. They would run past him sometimes, Jim, Tommy, Kevin, Lenore. He used to call them runts. 

Now he knelt, slumped over, his bag of apples and bread discarded a few feet away. 

Another guard, Kent? stood over him, phaser pointed and eyes narrowed at Jim. 

“How long’s this been going on, kid?” Kent growled. He smelled. Even from feet away Jim could smell the death on him, where he must have spent hours digging holes for Kodos’ discarded corpses. 

Jim presses his lips together. He doesn’t talk to guards. Never even talked to Murray, just grabbed the bag of fruit and ran after the man put it down. It wasn’t a lot but it was enough for them to get by on. 

“How  _long?"_ Kent slams the back of the phaser into Murray’s head and the man falls on his face, the bubble of copper red blood leaking down his chin and into the dusty dirt below. It contrasts with his hair, the reddest hair Jim’s ever seen, the only color that’s around this place. Ever since the death order went out, all Jim’s seen is grey. Dusty browns, grey. Can’t look long enough to see color.

"Tell you what,” Kent spits to the side and Jim is frozen. Knows that they’re too close to the caves, knows that the guard could start searching and find any number of his kids and Jim cannot have that. His heart is beating too fast and his underarms are prickling with sweat and it  _hurts. “_ You can have that bag. Won’t look twice at it. If you shoot the traitor.”

Kent’s rotten teeth gleam. He remembers this guard too. Failed his 'Fleet exam twice. Came to Tarsus with his tail between his legs, is what Jim’s uncle said. 

Jim shakes his head. Looks from Murray’s blackened and puffy eyes to the phaser, held out and waiting for Jim. 

He’s never shot anyone before. 

Just the cans that Tommy Leighton’s older brother laid out on posts in the field. 

Kent turns the phaser on, Jim nearly jumps with the sound. Fixes it on Jim. He wonders if he’ll be recognizable after the blast hits him in the face. Doesn’t care. 

He doesn’t want to die. But if it’s going to happen, he can’t think too much about after. It’ll only make it worse. 

“You’re not gonna beg, you shithead?” Kent laughs, kicks Murray in the back and the other guard groans. 

“I won’t kill you, runt.” The guard’s grin widens. “Just make you wish I had. Leave you with no food and a wound that will make death come slow. You want that?”

Jim gulps. 

He wakes up before the rest of it plays out. 

Bones’ arms tighten around him, his lips press against his sweaty neck even as Jim flails. Can’t get Murray’s face, his red hair stained with red blood, the dust choking them all and the sound of the phaser as Kent guided Jim’s hand to shoot Murray. 

He’s up and out of the bed and just makes it to the toilet bowl when he throws up. 

And he thanks god that Bones is there--in bed beside him, on the Bridge, always at his side.. Thanks god that Bones can pull him back to reality, to the present and future so he doesn’t linger in the past. Because he was thirteen-years-old when he shot a man dead for a bag of bread and apples and Bones has forgiven him, even if it wasn’t his sin to forgive. 

"You alright?" Bones voice is rough with sleep as Jim leans over the sink, splashing a whole water credit's worth on his face. 

His eyes are bruised purple underneath. He has a shift in two hours and can't imagine leaving this spot, arms shaky as he white knuckles the edges of the sink. 

"Been better," he sighs. 

Bones steps into the bathroom--even a Captain's quarters are barely big enough for two of them and rubs his hands over Jim's tense shoulder blades. His head is starting to pound. 

He falls back into Bones, back flush with his chest, head falling into the crook of Bones' shoulder and neck. 

The other man leans forward and kisses his temple, stubble brushing against his cheek, hand reaching down into the curve of Jim's back. 

"Let's go back to bed, darlin'."

"Can't sleep."

"We can just lay there."

And so Bones guides him back in the dark room, pulling him under the covers, curling up around him. His breath ghosts against Jim's neck as he talks--nonsense mostly, the one ensign who has to be bullied by Christine to come in for a checkup, the Lieutenant who can't stop giggling when Bones is around, the way Bones spends a majority of the time doing paperwork coming up with an excuse to go up to the Bridge to see Jim. 

His voice, both rough and warm, follows Jim into sleep where he dreams of nothing but his best friend and husband right by his side. 


	77. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones attempts to write his wedding vows.

“This is all the Vulcan’s fault, you know?” Leo grumbles and crosses out something on the piece of paper. 

“You know that the the PADD will save your changes, right?” Chapel says, fixing him with her no-nonsense face that has made even the Vulcan in question skitter. 

“I like writing it down, leave me alone.”

“Well, leave the Commander alone. And it was not his fault, Len. Nyota recommended that you write your own vows, not Spock.” She took a stack of PADDs from his desk that he had again failed to sign and raised her eyes at him. He rolled his eyes and grabbed for them. 

“Yes, but Nyota’s blameless. Jim would have thought she was only teasin’. No, but the goblin jumps in and suddenly it’s a wonderful idea!” He throws his arms back as if to prove the point and bangs into another stack of PADDs that he neglected to sign. 

Chapel swears and reaches forward to catch them. “Sir, with all due respect, you know you and the Captain would be lost without Spock and I."

“Probably crash and burn,” he says, grinning with the sweet southern smile his Mama always said would get him into trouble. 

Christine rolls her eyes as she backs out of the office, letting the door close behind her. 

“Hey! Where are you going-Chapel! I need help with these vows. I’m a doctor, not a poet, dammnit!" 

 


	78. Death Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The blame lies on him, the man foolish enough to fall in love with a captain with a death wish, bound to leave him the minute they said first met.

Bones walked to the opening of the cave, wondering if this was how men walking up the stairs to the gallows felt. Hendorff and Sulu are parentheticals, heads bent toward each other and feet inches apart as the wind from outside assaults their backs. 

“The Captain is in no condition--."

"Can’t just leave--”

“Maybe if we just walked to the beam out point and see if-”

“Gentlemen,” he clears his throat. 

“Doc,” Sulu rubs a hand down his face and steps away from the security officer. “How’s the captain?”

“I think Hendorff is right. It’ll be daylight in a few hours and I think you two can make it to the beam out point in the timeframe Spock set.”

He sees the vein in stockier man’s head pulse and he makes a note to check the man’s blood pressure when--he almost laughs, did he already forget what he chose to do? M'Benga will probably check his and Sulu’s blood pressure when they return to the ship.  _Without us._

 

“We’re not leaving without you,” Sulu says, his face twisting into a grimace, same one he had when he threatened Khan with the payload. 

He sighs. “Jim’s not--It doesn’t look good here. You got two hours to get back to the ship before who the hell knows what'll happen. I can’t risk moving him. So yes, you’ll leave without us.”

Hendorff folds his arm over his chest in the way Leo has seen him do when confronted with a security threat or someone in the brig. “There’s ways of getting you back on the ship, Doctor McCoy.”

“And I’m ordering you to leave me here." The _he needs me_ , remains unspoken.  _  
_

"If we go up, it’s only so we can find a way to come back down and get you.” Sulu says, his eyes softening.

He nods. “I know.”

They turn to look at the green and purple sky, a sight they marveled at early on in the away mission and now has turned Leo’s stomach to lead. 

“You better hurry,” he whispers, voice rough against the lump in his throat. 

The other two walk quickly to gather the meager supplies they feel necessary to take back. Sulu leaves Leo with most of it, even if he knows it’s futile. Won’t be much use for it in a few hours. 

Both men avoid looking at Jim, cradled in blankets and too quiet in the corner by the dwindling fire. Sulu glances at him for a second but tears his eyes away as if the sight hurts him. Leo reckons it does. 

He nods to Hendorff as the man walks out of the cave and then gives Sulu the saddest attempt at a smile he can muster as the helmsmen clasps him on the shoulder. 

“See you soon, McCoy.”

Leo wonders when Sulu got into the habit of making promises he couldn’t keep. Figures he learned it from Jim, who once told him that they’d grow old together and chase away Joanna’s suitors with sawed off shot guns from the porch of a farm house in Georgia.  _Fucking liar._

They leave and then he’s alone. He crouches down next to Jim, hand brushing over the bangs stuck to his forehead in sweat.

Jim murmurs in his sleep and leans into the touch, his skin burning with the fever the infection has caused. He hates timeframes, has battled against them for most of his medical career, but he’d say the toxin from the barbs will probably sap Jim of any strength in about a half hour, at best, and that’s only if he doesn’t bleed out. “Hey ‘ones.”

“Hey darlin’.”

“You should go.”

He swallows. He knows it took a lot of strength Jim doesn’t have to say it but Leo can’t grant it. 

“I’m sorry.” He kisses one of Jim’s scraped and bruising hands. 

Jim shakes his head but Leo can only smirk at him. “You’re stuck with me. Not leaving, okay?”

He gets up out of his crouch, his knees popping at the effort, and gathers the supplies closer. They’ve got some water, an epi-pen, and a busted communicator.

He finally settles down next to Jim, figuring that if the world’s going to explode, he should be as close to the kid as possible. They never got to the aisle to say 'till death do us part but the sentiment is there. 

He holds Jim’s hand until he blacks out and as far as deaths go, he supposes it was as quick and painless as he was going to get. 

**

Leo wakes up with a headache and the taste of a dying animal in the back of his throat. It takes him a moment to remember everything; the feel of the cold air in the cave, Jim’s hand going slack in his, the pained sound he realized he made when he realized that the captain’s breathing was shallower than usual and then-

“Fuck!” He’s up and out of the biobed before Chapel can come and push he back down. He hears the alarm as the machines take in his reading-elevated heart reate, rising blood pressure-and he swings around. 

“Where is--where is he?”

“Leonard! Please, calm down. Doctor McCoy…” Chris is yelling at him and he sees M'Benga out of the corner of his eye prepare a hypo. 

Geoff presses the hypo his forearm before he can move away and it’s fast acting. “You bastard.” he grinds out before falling back on his ass on the bed. 

He sees Sulu’s face, horrified and sad, as he closes his eyes again. 

**

He knows it when he sees Sulu’s face and yet he closes his mind down like he learned to do when working on patients, working on Jim. Singular focus. 

“He wanted us to protect you. No matter the cost. I guess he always knew this would happen, even after Khan. So we had to get you out.”

Leo’s shaking his head. “You had no right. I wanted to stay, goddamnit!” He balls his hands into fists and gulps down as much air as his closing airways will let him because that is all he can imagine doing. Bright colors dance close to the edges of his vision and he’s eyes are squinted. They burn. He’s crying. Of course. 

“You should have just let me die on that planet with him!”

“I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t. Jim would have never forgiven me.”

Sulu’s pale. He looks awful. He probably just got released from sickbay a day ago, himself. Leonard can’t think about that right now. 

He doesn’t say that he’ll never forgive Sulu for bringing him back to the planet but he wants to. 

Of course, he’s knows the other man’s not to blame. 

The blame lies on him, the man foolish enough to fall in love with a captain with a death wish, bound to leave him the minute they said first met. 

And he’ll never forgive himself either. He’s not even sure he would begin to know how.


	79. Wolverine

Imagine Khan’s blood makes Jim heal like Wolverine and this just makes him kind of gleeful at first and when a group of space pirates shoots at him and he dances into sickbay. “This time baby I’ll be bullllletproof.”

Bones calls him a jackass and pulls him over onto a biobed to check every bullet hole in his Command gold shirt, healed and scar-free. 

"What's wrong?" The CMO asks when Jim's face falls, his legs stop kicking with all the energy of a three-year-old on a sugar high.

"Nothing."

Bones reaches over with gentle fingers, turning his face so that their eyes can meet. 

"Rapid healing. You know what that means?"

"Yeah, that you won't give me a heart attack every time you go out on an away mission?" 

Jim shakes his head. 

"What then?"

"Can't be sure. But I think that means I'll outlive you."

Bones calls him a jackass again. 

“If that means that I won’t have to outlive _you_ again, I’ll take it, kid.”

And then Bones breaks his own rule and pulls him down for a kiss in the middle of the sickbay in front of the nurses and ensigns. Some rules were meant to be broken, apparently. 


	80. Pathetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He said, “I couldn’t just leave you there looking all pathetic.”

He said, “I couldn’t just leave you there looking all pathetic.”

What Bones should have said to him instead was, “Please don’t leave me here all pathetic.”

Because it took him a while to let himself fall in love with Jim. It took him a while to accept, begrudgingly, a friendship with the kid. He didn’t want someone else to lose and he knew, just by sitting next to the kid that Jim Kirk was the kind of person who left people behind. Everyone knew the story of George Kirk and Jim was destined, didn’t need to listen to the rumors to know it, to be like his father.

Jim had to be a star that would burn out brighter and quicker than any other and Bones couldn’t imagine just letting him. And where would he be then?

But as he sits up in bed on a Sunday morning, watching his husband glare at a requisition form over the top of glasses perched at the end of his nose, he realizes that if he can only be so lucky to be able to burn with this son of a bitch,  _his_ son of a bitch.

No one would be left behind pathetic then. 


	81. The Alley

It wasn't the worst possible place to try to concentrate but it was a damn near thing. 

"Jim." Bones called, trying to yell over a strike-level pin explosion--he couldn't tell if Jim was showing off or making a point, as the seven-year-olds he was "coaching," stood around with awed expressions and wide eyes. 

"Now your turn, Mellie." Jim turned on his rented shoes out of the way for an adorable little girl with the curliest set of pigtails he had ever seen. "Remember, give it all you got, and don't worry about hitting the bumpers, just chuck it."

Mellie carried her bright purple ball with both hands, tottering until she got to the lane and then tossed it. It followed an arc about three feet from where she stood and landed with a echoing thunk on the lane. 

"James!" Chris Pike, owner and coach of the high school league Jim was on yelled in warning from his place at the front desk.

"Sorry, Captain." Jim said, sheepishly. 

"Prove it when you buff and wax those lanes later." Pike told him and returned to whatever he was doing behind the desk.

Mellie worried her front teeth in her bottom lip. "Did I get you in trouble with the Captain, Jim?"

Jim's grin was quick. "No way, Mellie Bee. Just ah, try rolling it, like I showed you. Give it all you got by rolling it."

Mellie nodded, her whole head bobbing and curls bouncing with the effort. 

"Jim! I'm leaving if you don't get up here soon."

"No, you won't!" Jim called and high fived Mellie as the ball rolled into three of the left hand pins.

"Yes, I definitely will!"

It wasn't that Bones minded being here. he didn't, not really--he'd spent more time here than home lately and had learned to love the smell of funnel cake combined with french fries and burnt pizza crust. It reminded him of Jim. But Bones needed a break from the monotony of crashing pins and the claw machine's incessant jingle. He should have, like he told himself last time, brought a book. But Jim was too distracting, too hyper and too amusing to stop staring at. He probably wouldn't get much reading done. 

"How ya doing, Bones?" Jim leaned over the partition between the bowling alley floor to grab Bones' soda and take a huge pull through the straw. 

"Bored outta my mind. Would you actually do a few questions so I can grade you?"

Jim took a fry too and sprinkled some salt on the ketchup despite Bones' protest before dunking it and tossing it in his mouth. 

"Infant." Bones muttered. 

Jim just grinned. 

"Why don't you play a game?" Jim asked, when he was done slurping down more soda. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Because I was here to make sure you got some SAT prep done. Remember?" 

Jim was a sophomore and shouldn't even had been thinking of the SATs but he had already taken his GED and could have graduated any time. It was a combination of Bones, Jim's mom and Pike that insisted he take his SAT, especially if he refuse to go to school for four years. 

"Yeah, but--"

"Yeah, but nothing." Bones slid the plate away from Jim's grabby fingers. "No way you're getting into CalTech without the SATs and you can't get the score that you need until you study."

"I told you I don't really need to study."

"And we agreed that's bullshit."

Amelia, an adorable girl who insisted on wearing a different color tutu over her pants every practice squealed and slapped her hands over her ears. "Swear jar, Bones!" 

There was probably going to be enough in the swear jar to buy pizza and sodas for the girls when practice was done for the season. 

Amelia's awaiting hand plucked the wrinkled dollar from Bones' and she danced around the partition to the front desk where a swear jar in an empty shoe square. 

"What'd he say this time?" Pike asked, leaning over to get on Amelia's level as she came around to the back of the desk. 

"The B word, Captain." Amelia whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear as she stepped on the stool and shoved the money in the jar. 

"Can you just do a few questions so I'm not here for nothing?" Bones asked when all the girls were back focused on the game. 

"You're not here for nothing." Jim said, his shit-stirring grin in place as he leaned farther and farther into Bones' personal space. 

"You're going to fall."

"I've already fallen." Jim was inches from his face now. "Fallen in love."

"Oh Jesus."

"With bowling!" Jim jumped back and pivoted. "Nice hit, Carlie Lou!"

"That's not my name!" Carlie rolled her eyes as only a seven year old could.

"You menace." But Bones' heart was hammering almost as long as the crashing of the pins. 

He wanted CalTech for Jim. He wanted it for them. He wanted Jim to get away from his step-father's house, from the small town that knew him as only a dead war hero's son. He wanted them to be together where no one cared who they were or what they had done or what they would do. And maybe one day he would be brave enough to say it back to Jim--that he too had fallen in love too--for real-- and that he had fallen in love when they first met, even though the adults in their lives would have insisted it wasn't possible to fall in love at 12. And they would be okay. One day.


	82. Major Tom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.

It was like that old Terran song. 

_Hello, Major Tom…_

Except much worse. 

The Enterprise was falling, falling, fast. Abandoned except for him. Here history was repeating itself. Kirks were meant to die in space, it seemed. 

“Come in, Enterprise. Can you hear us Captain Kirk?”

That would be command, trying in vain to get control of the situation, to make sure this didn’t turn out as they all imagined it would. 

“Control this is Captain Kirk, I can hear you loud and clear.”

“What’s your status, Kirk?” The crackle and pop as the connection fizzled, died and was resurrected. 

He rolled his eyes. “The countdown starts.”

“Captain, do you copy? What’s your status?”

“The Enterprise’s status has not changed from when the crew abandoned ship two hours ago.”

“Are you able to abandon the ship yourself, Captain?”

He stared at the screens, at the way he barely had kept the Enterprise from plummeting into the atmosphere. 

“Negative, control. I’ve got to manually engage the-” He could hear the connection give way to static and cursed. 

“Captain? Kirk?” _  
_

He grit his teeth and bit out, “Negative. She’s dead in the water. Comms will be down soon.”

“Kirk, you won’t survive-”

“Tell me something I don’t know, control!”

“We’ve got shuttles on the way. Your crew is on it’s way back up, do you think you can hold out?” Here was where control’s voice betrayed the emotion of the person behind it. Poor fucker, probably had to relay all this to Bones and Spock and that conversation couldn’t have been pretty. 

He sighed, sucked in his breath, no need to get fucking emotional now. “You and I both know that I don’t have the time for that.”

“Just-hold on Kirk.”

The comm unit sparked as the ship took a dive, nearly going bass akwards. Jim’s feet couldn’t stay planted on the Bridge’s floor and he went straight into the computer unit. “Son of a-”

“ _Jim?”_

He sucked in his breath the pain in his forehead from where he hit the edge giving way to a whole different kind of pain. “Bones?”

“What are you doing? Get on a Shuttle!”

He tried to ignore the way his hands shook as passed them over his face. His fingertips, when they swiped over his forehead, came away with blood. 

“It’s not that simple. I don’t think I can-”

“Make it that simple!” Bones growled. The connection went dead. 

It was back on just as quickly. Uhura must be there. 

“Jim, you listen to me. You come home.”

“I am coming home,” He couldn’t help the way his eyes burned, the way it became suddenly hard to breathe. 

“Please, Jim.”

“I-I love you Bones. You know that right?”

“Of course, Darlin’. Just, please, come home.”

The Enterprise lurched again as Earth’s gravity upended it. 

_Earth below us, drifting, falling…_

_One final message-_

_“_ Bones-”

_Coming home._


	83. Dance Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From tumblr prompt by darthrrevan: "You should do the “We take a dance class together and our next routine calls for partnerwork, and we got put togeth-STop standing on my foot!” AU prompt!

There were a few ways that Leonard McCoy could get his shit together. He’d even made a list. 

1\. Be a better father

2\. Be a better person

3\. Be a better doctor

4\. Be better sober

The last one was going to take a bit of work. He found himself at the bottom of a bottle more nights than he could count but he was able to get up in the morning and go to work so as far as he was concerned, he didn’t need to 86 the drinking for a while. 

First things first was to be the daddy he always wanted to be for Jo. 

His daughter was seven, loved ballerinas, horses and the color green. She cried last time she saw him because he looked sad and it broke his heart. Joanna deserved better. 

Hence, the dance class. 

There was a father/daughter dance back home every year in the fall and he was determined to make it. Hell, he’d quit his job and go to dance classes 24/7 in order to get his two left feet to work well enough. Jo wasn’t dancing with Clay ‘Stepfather of the Year” Treadway again. No way in hell. 

And all would have went according to plan, he was getting into the swing of things–learning the basic steps, learning how to move gracefully when the kid showed up.

The ridiculously handsome, if not a little reckless looking, kid. 

Leonard always knew that he liked men. Hell, his first crush had been on a kid in his first grade class named Oscar who liked trucks and let Leonard repair them when he liked to smash them together. 

But Jocelyn had been his best friend from sixth grade on and they fit together in the way that high school sweethearts should. He hadn’t given dating a man much thought until the divorce. 

And now, this. 

The kid’s name was Jim and he was probably sleeping with everyone in the room except Leonard. He had a hard time looking away from the kid because his eyes were the same deep blue as Jo’s. 

He danced to make everyone laugh–only taking the steps seriously when no one was looking. Leonard couldn’t tell why he was there except maybe to waste time. 

He was pretty happy to avoid him. 

Until Marika twisted her ankle and Leonard was left without a partner for their first week of partner work. 

Their first dance together was a disaster. 

“Watch it, Bones.” The kid grinned as they fumbled together, Leonard unsuccessfully shuffling away from the kid during the routine they were supposed to be practicing. 

“Who the hell is Bones?” Leonard asked, dropping the kid’s hands so quickly they might have been infected by the plague. 

“You, Bones.” Jim grinned again. “You’re all angles and bones. You don’t let yourself move. Not a bad thing. Just need to relax a little.”

Leonard huffed and ignored him. He would put up with the kid for Jo’s sake. To learn to dance so that he could surprise her. 

He had no idea that in three months he would be going back to Georgia with a boyfriend, a job offer and a dancing skill he never thought he could possess. 

And Jo would cry because they were both happy this time. Not sad at all. He’d even say he got his shit together. 


	84. Traffic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonard McCoy is a damn good doctor but not a great employee.

Leonard McCoy is a damn good doctor but not a great employee. 

He’s never on time for the early shift meetings or there half an hour before his shift starts–as you’re supposed to be, his head nurse likes to remind him. 

He only rushes when a patient needs him to, not because it’s expected of him. 

Today, though, is bad, even for him. 

He’s forty-five minutes behind schedule and hasn’t even had time to grab his coffee. He doesn’t drink the hospital sludge on principal unless it’s the only thing around but this morning he needs at least an IV drip of caffeine to get going. 

The line of cars in front of him looks like the beginning of a pile up and he fiddles with the radio to find the traffic report. 

“Watch that road work near Kings Highway, y’all. It’s caused quite a backup before the on-ramp to the parkway and exit 12. Might want to plan an alternate route.”

Leonard curses and the car before him crawls an inch forward. 

A half hour later, he finds himself glaring at the man in the orange vest, leaning on the “SLOW” sign. The guy grins. A ridiculously friendly–and if possible, a bit hot–grin.

And fuck if that doesn’t make Leonard almost want to grin back. Almost. It’s all he can do not to flip the guy off as he speeds ahead to the on-ramp. 

The next day finds Leonard driving the same way. It’s earlier, he’s on time and desperate not to hit the same traffic. 

Sign guy is still there. Still grinning. He tips his hard hat at Leonard as he crawls by. 

Leonard even drives back the same way home, hoping to catch him, but the man is gone. 

The rest of the week Leonard gets up early just to make it past the sign guy. Just to get a peek of that grin under a shadow of stubble. He meets the guy’s blue eyes on Friday and stops short. 

“You okay, sir?” Guy asks. Cars honk behind him in one loud cacophonous scream. 

“What are you actually doing here?” Leonard asks. 

Guy shrugs. “Cables.”

“Cables?”

“It could take a week or two.” The man’s eyes light up. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The next day, Leonard has off. He drives by with a cup of coffee from his favorite place and hands it out the window. 

“You look like you’ll die of boredom without some caffeine.” Leonard says by way of explanation. 

“Boredom.” The guy–who’s a bit younger than Leonard himself–laughs. “Nah. Just concentrating on ways to get you stop next to me more often. Thought maybe I’d fall or something.”

“Well, that’d be real stupid of you. I’m a doctor not an idiot.”

“It would have got you to stop, though.”

“Maybe.”

An awkward silence is punctuated by a sudden beep of a car trying to squeeze in the space Leonard left behind. 

“Hey, Kirk! Ask him out already before I stuff you in the manhole!” A yell comes from a little farther away, before Leonard sees a flash of a dark ponytail beyond the hard hat as the woman climbs down the ladder. 

Kirk shrugs and reaches into the car window, pulling Leonard by the neck of his scrubs until his head just reaches out. The man leans forward and kisses him, a short, soft kiss that should not have had it’s beginning on the side of the road but somewhere private and Leonard’s hand reaches up to pull at the vest–

Kirk breaks away. “I’m Jim. And I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”

Leonard flips off the car whose horn swallows his reply. But it’s okay. He’s never been happier to cause traffic before. 


	85. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sulu’s not supposed to be here, seeing this.

Sulu’s not supposed to be here, seeing this.

He came into the Sickbay to steal a hypospray of painkillers not to witness Dr. McCoy cradling the Captain’s hands, lips brushing over his bruised knuckles, face a twisted mask of relief and desperation.  

He knows better than to try to get away with absconding supplies. Nurse Chapel’s wrath is not something he’s willing to risk–but everyone is tired and McCoy ordered Chapel and the rest of the skeleton medbay crew to bed. They had divided their time between two surgeries–Jim’s and Ensign Ridley who passed away even after they managed to revive her on the transporter pad.

He’s elbow deep in the drawer for disinfectant when he hears a sharp intake of raspy breath, a tremulous sigh that makes him start so quickly he almost slams the drawer on his fingers.

Peeking around the corner to see if he’s been found out, he sees McCoy shift closer to the bed, elbows dipping into the mattress. 

“I miss my kid. I miss my dad.” McCoy’s fingers turn Jim’s palm back and forth in his hands, thumb smoothing over the parts of the Captain’s hand that isn’t nicked and scrapped and scarred. “Please don’t make me miss you, too.”

Sulu lets out his own shaky breath. Jim pushed him out of the way of an incoming phaser blast, taking it square in the chest. Uhura said that Jim made a promise to Demora and Ben to bring him home no matter what. Sulu wish he didn’t know what no matter what looked like. 

He sneaks out with what he needs, itching to talk to his daughter and husband. He never wants them to miss him either, not more than they have to already–and he knows he has Jim to thank for making that possible. He just wishes it wasn’t at the cost of McCoy–someone who constantly fought for every being on this ship, who brought Jim back from the brink hundreds of times before, never sure which time it would be too little, too late. 

He lingered in the doorway to Medbay, deciding it was time to make his own promise to the Captain and Doctor he owed so damn much to. He would try his damndest to make sure McCoy never truly knew what missing Jim was like. 


	86. Outside Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a few blanket reasons why Jim’s not allowed to go on anywhere without Bones.

There are a few blanket reasons why Jim’s not allowed to go on anywhere without Bones. 

Everyone knows this. No, seriously everyone. From the Bridge Crew to the Ensigns, to the diplomats on every rock from Terra and back, to every damn being at Starfleet Headquarters. 

Somehow. And Jim cannot be blamed for this. 

He ends up in Medbay. Without Bones. Without anyone who really knows that Jim should not be that too far from Bones. 

He’s unconscious, for what it’s worth. Of course he is. 

And some worried Doctor with more anxiety than sense, starts administeringhyposprays like it’s his fucking job. I mean it is his job. But it’s also his job to check to make sure her unconscious patient isn’t allergic, am I right?

So, the reaction is instant. And he starts seizing and it’s very bad. Because this is a Federation Hero. This is THE Jim Kirk. And he’s probably dying in front of him. 

And then he remembers, like a fucking lighting bolt to his crotch socket he remembers the Starfleet delivered TOP PRIORITY message that was sent out across the black. Jim Kirk is NOT, EVER–DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE–to be treated on without the express knowledge of one Dr. Leonard H. McCoy (CMO and Husband of Jim Kirk).

Who just so happens to have barged into the Medbay with a look on his face that makes this doctor, poor asshole that he is, want to pass out or shat his pants. 

He’s pushed aside by another menacing looking face–a woman who barely spares him a glance before she’s taking a part his Medbay and tossing them TOSSING them at McCoy. 

McCoy works quickly, more efficiently than this poor sack of a Doctor has ever seen. He’s not even sure what’s going on half the time and he’s been at this post for three years, knows every inch of this Medbay like he knows his own person. But McCoy works at this like he’s done it time and time again. And this Idiot Doctor has heard the story–McCoy is a legend, especially now. Especially where Kirk is concerned. 

He slumps against the wall, hands shaking like they haven’t since his intern days. He fucked up. He’s done. If Kirk doesn’t make it–and by the way he’s choking and the way McCoy is all, “Shh, it’s okay, baby. You’ll be fine, just breathe for me okay.” Hypo administered. Barking at Angry Nurse for another hypo, it’s might be a near thing–he knows the whole of Starfleet and one scary CMO are coming after him. 

He imagines a small cell where not even the light of day reaches him. If he makes it. He’s heard Kirk’s got a Vulcan in his pocket who’s a bit…protective. 

Nurse comes over when there’s nothing more for her to do. She’s got the kind of lines around her face that come from laughing to hard or worrying too hard. Idiot Doctor (as he know refers to himself) has no idea. 

“You better start telling me what you gave him and then you better pray.”

Idiot Doctor lists for her and she’s nodding because it’s so fucking common. It’s harmless, helpful even, unless you’re allergic to a host of helpful drugs like Kirk. 

“Can you even read?” Nurse snaps at him. She brings a PADD–it’s the incoming patients PADD. A notice about Kirk is always at the top–highlighted in red because he’s in the area. It’s that much of a deal. 

At this point, Idiot Doctor is kind of hoping for a rebuke. A shout. Something from McCoy, anything. Because besides that initial shove, there’s been nothing. The Nurse has handled everything. And Idiot Doctor knows that it’s because he’s nothing. Less than nothing. He doesn’t matter one iota. 

Twenty three minutes later and everything is so still. So fucking still that Idiot Doctor cannot even hear his own breath, thought he’s breathing like Kirk came in doing. Fuck. 

And then Kirk opens his eyes and McCoy falls in on himself, just sags down into the med bay. Idiot Doctor looks away but he hears McCoy’s rough, “Don’t you ever.” And Nurse’s snort and even Idiot Doctor is wiping his eyes. 

Twenty minutes more and Idiot Doctor has thrown up everything he ever ate and is standing just outside of the Medbay, in view of the Nurse but hopefully not in view of McCoy or Kirk. It’s still quiet. Kirk is sleeping–no labored breathing, no choking sounds, no chaos but McCoy is compulsively checking his tricorder. Every few seconds he moves it over another part of Kirk and Idiot Doctor holds his breath until McCoy just nods to himself and moves it another inch. 

And then:

“Hey, Bones?” Kirk’s rasp is the greatest fucking thing the doctor has ever heard. It’s what draws the line between a life scraping shit and garbage off of Starfleet Headquarter floors. “I just wanted to let you know that you saved me like no one has ever saved me before.”

A sigh from cranky woman. “Khan. Section 31. Mud. Lenore Karidian, should I go on?”

McCoy rolls his eyes, checks the tricorder. 

“But Bones, seriously.” Kirk’s limp hand grabs at the other man’s forearm, just as he’s doing best not to slur too much, his hands are splotchy but the color is evening out. McCoy’s fighting a smile–if Doctor Idiot didn’t know any better he’d say it was an exasperated smile. Could smiles be exasperated? Idiot Doctor is too nervous to give it much thought. 

Kirk tries to sit up, McCoy keeps a hand on his shoulder, thumb rubbing into the skin not covered by torn Command tunic. “You’ve saved me in every way a person can be saved.”

“You too, kid.” McCoy says. 

Angry Nurse Chapel glares at Idiot Doctor while he’s thanking every power that be that Kirk made it, that McCoy burst in when he did. She mouths. “Lucky bastard,” at him and he knows. He fucking knows. 


	87. Missing the Signs

His mama used to say planning "doesn't amount to a hill of beans when life's fixin' to get in the way."

She said it often, usually about something his daddy had done, with an expression of such fond exasperation that Bones was not surprised to see reflected back at him in the mirror most days.

He should have took it to heart when planning the second (but most important) proposal. 

His plan, such that it was, involved taking a shuttle out on the first shoreleave of their five-year-mission (the one Jim kept on insisting was going to be bestowed on them by the admiralty) on a quiet expanse of untouched land where the sky sparkled with blues and purples above them and all Bones could hear was his own heart as it tried to escape it's chest cavity--just because he'd gotten down on one knee before didn't mean he wasn't as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (another Mama-ism).

What he'd planned for was something quiet, intimate and without the posturing that was often required of their still-too-new ranks--delighted with the ability to just be themselves for a bit. Bones kept feeling like a kid in his first tux, itching at his collar and looking around for the grownup no matter how right being CMO to Jim felt. he felt like a cardboard poster in front of the crew and at most mandatory Starfleet events. And Jim didn't have to say anything--from the way he balled his dress uniform up at the end of a long day of lunches and meetings followed by galas and press conferences, Bones felt to his core that they both felt like they were playacting half the time. 

So the proposal could be nothing short of perfect. He wanted to recall the familiarity of cool Sunday mornings in San Francisco, tangled together and sated, comfortable with how things were without agonizing over anything but who would get up to get bagels. 

He picked up the ring the morning Pike demoted Jim. By that evening, Chris was dead and within a week he was staring, without seeing, as a body bag was rolled in and his medbay Crew stood at attention, horror and shock registering in varying degrees across their faces. 

He couldn't think, couldn't focus on anything else after that then saving Jim, healing his damaged and irradiated cells, putting him back together. 

He hid the ring in a small compartment in the bulkhead of the triangular CMO quarters, mostly kept for pretense but functioning as extra guest quarters for times they have Joanna on board. 

He doesn't think of the ring again for a while. For what it's worth, he and Jim are married in the ways that mattes, not that it's anyone's damn business (least of all his Mama who won't stop crooning about more grandbabies). 

But he should have known that something as small as a ring and as big as the proposal knocking around his head couldn't stay secret. 

Suddenly everyone has something has something to input. 

"We will make beef strogonoff, the Captain told me that is his favorite of all of my Terran dishes." Maxie, one of the cooks from the mess says and nearly swoons when Bones produces the ring he's been keeping close. 

"The Captain prefers my baked ziti." Her sous replies hotly and Bones is whisked away by Sulu who wants to discuss the location and then Scotty who wants to discuss any "extras" (Bones is afraid what he means, thinking of the explosives he set off for Keenser's birthday).

Somehow, in between all of the planning, he finds time to get nauseous with anxiety. 

Spock, of all people, is the one to calm his nerves. 

They're leaving Jim's de-facto ready room, also known as the dining room in the apartment across from Starfleet medical-- where he's sequestered himself for the unforeseeable future to catch up on paperwork. 

The Commander rests a steady hand on Bones arm as he sags against the hallway outside their door. It's a familiar motion, one that usually stops Bones from babbling into hysterics or ranting about how the whole trauma staff at Medbay is fired (this for allowing Chapel to hypo him after seventy-two hours of no sleep).

"It is illogical to be nervous, Leonard. Not when you both have faced what some would call insurmountable." Bones can't help but smile at both the name and the sentiment.

It's only been two weeks since Jim could walk on his own and his four weeks since his condition went from grave to stable. He's gotten his color back and hasn't made any nurses quit or ensigns cry this week, more so than Leonard can say for himself. It's been eight weeks since Spock and he both had to imagine a world without Jim in it. 

"Thanks, Spock." He detaches himself from the Vulcan's reassuring grip and walks to find Scotty. Jim deserves whatever extras the man can cook up. 

They (because apparently the whole ship is proposing to Jim too) set the time for the first night aboard the newly retrofitted Enterprise. 

But remember what his mama said about plans and life getting in the way?

Jim is already sitting in front of the wide observation deck window, hunched over and small when Bones comes in to make sure everything is set up. 

"I found the ring last week." Jim rasps, the sound carrying to where Bones stands frozen, mind traveling back to that awful moment when the Security wheeled in that damn black bag. "I was...I couldn't figure out how to say no."

In all his planning, all wrapped up in listening to everyone’s ideas, he wasn’t paying enough attention to Jim. 

How he avoided certain parts of the ship when they walked through, how his eyes were wild and skirted past everyone who walked by. Bones volunteered at the SF medical up until just a few days before and never put two and two together that Jim hadn’t been sleeping, always finding him curled up with a PADD on the couch when he came back and in the same position when Bones got up in the morning. 

They hadn’t been together since just after Nibiru and hadn't actually slept together since they landed back on Earth before Harrison attacked, always passing each other in the chaos and catching hours in places other than their shared quarters. 

As Bones stands before the extravagant display on the observation deck, watching as Jim turns to face him, his expression a shadow of what it usually is. 

“I’m sorry.” Jim tells him and gets up slowly, stumbling but shrugging off Bones as he reaches to help. "I'm not strong enough to leave you. I--" he clears his throat. "I need you." 

His throat is raw from all of the words that are scraping up, trying to claw out. He clenches his hands against his sides instead. 

"I saw what marrying my dad did to my mom when he died. And I could die, Bones. And not come back this time. We got lucky." He blows out his breath on the last word. "So damn lucky. But I can't do that to you. I won't."

He takes a few shuddering breaths and opens his mouth again but Bones' hand is on his chest, reassuring heartbeats settling his own frantic pulse as he stops the words before they can come tumbling out. 

"Let me talk, alright?"

Jim nods. 

"When I thought I lost you, I was so angry with you because I couldn't go too. That you didn't let me follow you. I wanted to find Khan and kill him but I hoped he would kill me in the process. The plan to save you was reckless, it might not work, but I did it to save me too. You understand that, right?" He made sure Jim was looking at him. "I would do anything, take any risk, to have a minute, hell a second, more with you. And you're right. You could die tomorrow. I could die tomorrow. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be with you today."

He leaned his forehead against the other man, their noses brushing against each other. 

Jim closed his eyes and swallowed. 

"Okay."

"Okay?" 

"Let's get married, you reckless idiot."

"Who you calling reckless idiot?"

Jim silenced him with a kiss and Bones dug the ring and slid it on his fiance's finger, feeling like he could breath for the first time in a very long time.


	88. Doctor Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karolmarcus wrote, "okay but an au where bones and jim are both doctors who work at the same hospital and jim is in pediatrics and they meet when bones takes joanna for a check up"

"I have a tummy ache."

Leonard McCoy put down the Dr. Mutter book and fixed his daughter with a glance over the couch. It was early Saturday and he had her for the next week while his ex and her new husband went on a couple's retreat. He kept his opinions on that too himself, of course. "Tummy ache?"

She nodded, strands of hair coming lose from the french braid her mother had sent her in. "A bad one."

He got up and put the back of his hand against her forehead. "Do you want to skip breakfast of Lou's this morning?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Nooo. You promised me confetti pancakes."

"That might be a bit too sweet if your stomach's bothering you, bug. Maybe we should try some toast and we can watch some TV on the couch for a bit?"

"No park?" She looked toward the bay window that gave a view of the great expanse of open commons, a park was a five minute walk and it was already promising to be a warm fall day. 

"Not if you're not feeling well, baby girl." He steered her back toward the couch. 

She dug into the carpet. "What if we just went for a quick check up with Doctor Jim?"

Leonard's eyebrows flew into his hairline. "Doctor Jim?"

"Yeah. He works on Saturday morning. Nurse Chapel told me when I called." She smirked. 

"When did you call?"

"This morning." She tried to hid her grin but she inherited his horrible poker face.

He threw his hands up in the air. "Joanna Beth McCoy!"

"Daddy."

"This is about what we talked about. Sweetie, I know you think I'm lonely but I'm not. I'm fine. And I don't think Dr. Jim even-."

"Even what?"

He was going to say  _likes men_ or is _grown up enough to be in a relationship._ He didn't have time or the ability to unpack a lifetime's worth of bisexual hopes and concerns plus the one-sided rivalry he had with the younger doctor since residency at SF General into language his seven-year-old might understand. 

"Please, daddy? Can we go?" She asked, wrapping a small hand around his before he could rake it through his hair. 

"We're not bothering Doctor Jim just because you want to, Joanna."

She blinked up at him with a look of sheer determination. She inherited his stubbornness too.

 

~*~

"You must come to dinner with my Becky, Doctor Kirk. Alaina Curtis had been bringing her grandson, Calvin, in for allergy shots every other Saturday for the past six weeks and never left without an entreaty to ask Calvin's aunt, Becky, out. Becky had taken Curtis once in the beginning and seemed more happy to chat with Christine than him. 

But he couldn't explain that or his strict rule to never date anyone related to his patients to Alaina Curtis. He had a feeling she wouldn't understand. 

He smiled and nodded, his go-to for situations like this, and tried not to laugh at Curtis' eye-roll. 

"The day that woman finds out you prefer men is a day I hope I call out." Uhura commented as she made a notation in a patient chart. Like Jim, she preferred to have office hours on Saturday, as most patient's parents and guardians requested the extra hours for regular appointments. If it wasn't for the fact that Christine and Spock dragged him out most nights, he'd probably never leave. He preferred to always be on call in case a patient needed him. 

"Let's make sure we leave that to Spock and I'm not here either."

An hour and a half later found Jim walking the path to his favorite food-truck in the commons. On Saturday he treated himself to The Greasy Spoon, a fantastic diner on wheels that served the most delightful grilled cheese to be found outside his nana's kitchen. 

He ordered his slightly boring yet scrumptious usual: a double cheese on sourdough and found his favorite spot near the fountains which burbled just enough to drown out the specifics of park conversation but not enough that he wasn't able to listen to the park gossip of nannies and the chess players just around the corner.

He was mid-chew when a shrill squeal made him choke. 

"Doctor Jim! We went by the office but Nurse Christine said you were on lunch and I was sad because you said I could come back anytime." Joanna McCoy pulled her father behind her as she kept up a steady stream of excited chatter. He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood, purposely avoiding the glare that Doctor Leonard McCoy was aiming at him--possibly for being where he didn't want him to be or just for existing. 

Doctor McCoy was called Doctor McGorgeous or Doctor McGrumpy interchangeably by the hospital staff when Jim was a resident and there was a betting pool on whether or not he was a softie underneath or just a miserable bastard with the bedside manner of a spoiled house cat. Jim would have gone with the latter until the man showed  up at his practice two weeks ago with his sick daughter in toe. Jim still daydreamed about the way McCoy thanked him profusely, kissed his daughter on the head and promised her the biggest ice cream she could order after the flu test (negative, thank christ) had left her without the negative reaction he was expecting. Apparently Jim was good at his job and Doctor McCoy thought so. 

But Doctor McCoy was not only the most unattainable man Jim could have pined over--he was a parent to a patient and that was a line he didn't want to cross. Doctor Pike, his mentor and pediatrician extraordinaire had given him that advice and he wouldn't forget it. 

"Hiya, Joanna. Doctor McCoy." He inclined his head and froze, realizing that he stole that move from Spock when he was trying to be conciliatory and that was just too weird.

"Doctor Kirk." McCoy nodded, pulling Joanna closer before she could sit down on the bench next to him. 

"Doctor Jim why is your face getting red?"

Jim frowned, putting still greasy fingertips to his cheek which not only felt warm to the touch but itchy. He coughed.

"Daddy! Doctor Jim looks like when Curtis did after the pet show!"

"Shit." Doctor McCoy grew closer just as Jim's vision blurred. He tried to breathe but it was harder than usual. He looked down at his hands which were getting red and patchy with hives. Not good. 

"Kirk?" McCoy's hands were on his shoulder. "Do you have a epi-pen?" Kirk?"

He felt bad for making Joanna cry as he pitched forward but he couldn't say that everything was going to be okay when his mouth wouldn't work. 

~*~

"Felled by a grilled cheese." A rough voice sighed. "Just like my protege. What a story that will be."

Jim blinked at the rough hospital lights. "Sorry to disappoint. I lived."

"So you did. Thanks to Doctor McCoy. If you had finished the sandwich in that back corner of the park, who knows how long it would have been before someone found you. God, Jim, do you even carry an epi?" Even worried, Pike managed to look disapproving. 

"I have the same sandwich every Saturday, Chris. I never need it." Jim forced out the sentence, wincing when he was done and he took a ragged breath. 

"The new girl didn't clean the knife when she cut the sourdough, you know that? She was making a lobster salad sandwich before that. You could have died because of something so simple." 

Jim made a face. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Oh, McCoy was ripping the owner a new one when they bought you those." Jim turned his head to see a huge flower arrangement taking up most of the bedside table. It was next to a large picture of what he guessed was Jim laying on the park grass while a large hand pressed down on his chest--Joanna's depiction of her father administering CPR he was sure. 

"I'm not sure who's more smitten, the little girl or her father." As if Pike could read his thoughts too. Jim nearly shuddered at the thought. 

"Hm."

"I know how you feel about McCoy. I've known since your first rounds with the man."

"Jesus, Pike, can I have one secret?"

Pike raised an eyebrow. 

"And I don't date patient's relations. You taught me that."

Pike laughed. "For your own good. When I told you that, you had just stitched up that little boy and his divorced parents were both going to propose to you right then and there. If you really like McCoy, which I know you do, then you should ask him for dinner." Pike smirked, the same smirk that he delivered when Jim got into med school and passed his exams. "He did save your life after all."

 

~*~ 

Years later, a local San Francisco magazine hoping to get the dirt on the two of them will call them a power couple and ask for quotes on when they first fell in love for the expose, hoping to unveil an epic origin story. Jim will say it all started when Bones (the nickname stuck after Jim in his post-CPR delirium complemented McCoy on his strong bones, this according to Joanna McCoy who swears that Jim passed out again after saying it) nearly made him piss his pants on his first round as an intern. Bones would say that he fell for his husband sometime around mouth to mouth and their first date a week later. It didn't matter much, because Joanna would take the credit and lord it over them for as long as she wanted. 

 

 


	89. Contingencies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's never come up but both of them have contingency plans.

It's never come up before but both of them have contingency plans. 

On the couch in their quarters, with the low light of a vid barely illuminating their faces, Jim tongue darts to wet his top lip. It's his tell when he's about to say something that will make Bones unhappy. 

"Do you think Ensign Corey's husband knew?"

Bones hits the PADD to pause and shifts his position on the couch so that their facing each other. He can't make out much but he knows that Jim's face is set the same as when he has to defend his actions to the admirals. 

"Know what?"

"Know what could have happened. That Ensign Corey might not come back?"

Ensign Corey has hung over them for the past two days from the moment the away team landed on the transporter pad, to the moment Bones had to tell Jim that she had passed before they could stop the bleeding. 

It was Jim's first mission not accompanying the away team and he fretted in the way that Bones did when his husband went without him. Except, he did it with flailing limbs, misplaced jokes and a lot of helicopter Captaining while Scotty manned the teleportation terminal. 

None of it mattered, though, when Ensign Corey stumbled off the PADD, a look of fleeting confusion on her face as she glanced down at the wound just below her chest as if she was trying to remember if she couldn't remember what shirt she was wearing that day.

"I mean, every time I go on an away mission, you give me this look. I've seen it. You think I don't notice. But you wonder if I'm coming back."

Bones shook his head, knowing Jim couldn't see it. "No. I wonder if this is the time I can't save you."

Jim's sharp look makes Bones look away from him. 

"I know I've made some miracles happen before, kid. But even miracles stop sometime. And each time you leave this ship without me or each time I let you out of my sight, I wonder if this is the time I fail."

Jim shifts so that they're closer than they were when they first sit down on the couch. "I'm worried too. I know you'd take an arrow, spear, phaser shot for me. And god, Bones, I can't deal with that."

"You're not going to win this one, Jim. It's a no-win, you know that."

"I can try." Jim's face takes on the same look he's seen before councils and tribunals and even Jocelyn McCoy when she vid to tell him Joanna wasn't coming for a visit last time they were on Earth for shore-leave. 

"You know about my dad's disease. You know that it can come calling any day now. So if I can make whatever time I have left worth it, well... I'd rather give you one more minute without me than me have one minute alone without you."

Jim knows these are words they've never bothered to speak out loud. They've never had to. But they're being honest and Jim can't ruin this by not speaking the truth. 

"If I go missing, Spock has to keep you on the Enterprise. I don't want you coming after me." Bones eyes narrow and Jim holds up a hand. "I actually had a civil conversation with Jocelyn and she helped set us up with a small farmhouse. Half of our stuff from my mom's house is already moved in. But I just--I couldn't bring myself to have this conversation. I didn't want to think about me leaving you. But just in case, I want you to know that a home without me is there. A place for you to have. On your own."

Jim expects an outburst, the cold fury that Jim's seen on his husband's face leveled at hostage takers, one Lenore Karidian and Khan Noonien Singh. 

"That the house in North Carolina? The one you said you wanted to buy for retirement."

"Maybe." Jim tries not to grin. 

"The same one I bought two months ago and had my mom and Jo furnish?"

"Great minds, huh?" Bones says before pulling his husband in for a kiss. 

It won’t make it easier, if the worst happens. But maybe it will make it hurt less.


	90. Crime Spree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonard McCoy met the devil in Riverside, Iowa.

Leonard McCoy met the devil in Riverside, Iowa. 

Funny how his Nana’s bible never told him the devil had brilliant blue eyes and a smile that could make Leo feel whole again. 

Jim Kirk buys him a drink at a dive bar and tells him that they’re the same, Leo and him. Same broken bastards that life has chewed up and spit out. Learned everything they knew from the school of hard fucking knocks and it’s time to do something with that education. 

Jim tells him they can finally live without feeling hollow. 

And Leo (newly christened "Bones" for the way that Jim claims he can see a person down to their Bones) believes him. 

Their crime spree (Jim’s a smooth fucking talker and Leo can be an intimidating bastard when he wants to be) finally ends in a hotel room in Last Exit, Kansas, surrounded by everything the FBI can muster, including Special Agent Christopher Pike and his young partner, Special Agent Spock.

But at least they go out together. And at least Bones doesn’t feel hollow anymore.


	91. Chapter 91

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for character death, terminal illness.

Tarsus fucked him up. He knew that. But apparently, a baby born in space weeks premature has the immune system of a ant, and when shit goes down on Tarsus, it infects more than Jim’s memories. They don’t even have a name for it, this disease. He wonders when he dies, if they’ll name it after him. He’s sixteen-years-old. 

Leo McCoy develops Xenopolycythemia at sixteen--the youngest reported case and also the longest reported survivor. But that probably has something to do with his father’s inability to let Leo die. When he starts helping to run a group meeting for sick young adults, he’s twenty. That’s when he meets Jim Kirk. 

Jim is a ball of fire, despite his pale complexion and sunken cheeks. He looks constantly like he's recovering from a combination of pneumonia and the stomach flu but if your first impression is of some sickly kid, your next is of a shit stirring brat who says everything you're thinking including "Well, fuck yeah I'm going to die soon but I might as well live it up first."

Leo had heard of the kid before Starfleet medical begs his dad to take a look at Jim's workup, in part desperation to keep their cash cow alive (Jim's story was played up so much by the Fleet PR that he had his own charity that fed directly into Headquarters) and in part as an attempt to smooth over their fuck up.

Leo’s father had even agreed to take the case on, at first on a consulting basis because the man was more focused on curing Xenopolycythemia than anything else, and then as a parallel project to his other research.

That left Leo to take care of Jim in group--a waxing and waning gathering of around eight kids from the various wards of Starfleet medical that look as sullen as you can imagine in their circumstances. He suspects that they mostly come for the cookies. 

Their first meeting Jim makes Lily, a terminal cancer patient, laugh. It’s the first time the fifteen-year-old has even smiled in the meetings. He tells his story with a gallows humor that makes Leo bite the inside of his cheek from grinning. The mood lightens up. They laugh at the medical procedures they have to endure daily (Jim tells a story about peeing on a nurse he thought was hot after his first surgery. Everyone laughs so hard they cry and Leo manages not to choke on the scalding hot coffee he was drinking at the time). 

When it’s just them alone in the room, Jim introduces himself. As soon as they shake hands, Jim’s grip is strong despite his straw-thin arms, Leo knows he’s too far gone. He didn’t want to build attachments, had a fight when his dad even suggested he ran the meetings, but he realized he can’t stay protected by the distance he tries to keep from the kids in group for too long. 

Jim nicknames him "Bones" and Bones calls him "kid" and they spend their time annoying David McCoy’s assistants and running up a tab in the cafeteria on cheese fries (though Bones insists on sweet potato) and grilled cheeses like Starfleet Medical has never seen. 

He falls in love with a kid too young for him, fading fast before his eyes. 

David McCoy works double time on both their cases, hiring more staff to research Jim’s disease, trying to beat the clock on whatever is slowly killing him. 

“I wish I never met you,” Jim says in his hospital bed, hooked up to more machines than can fit in the room. 

Bones, pressed on the bed against him, half his body falling off, tries to bury his face in Jim’s clammy neck. “I don’t." 

"I just can’t imagine you not being here.” Jim’s lips are pale and chapped. He laughs, a rough and choking sound. “But I think I won’t have to.”

Later that night, after his dad tests him again and he takes a shower, his mom comes to find him. Her eyes are red and her shoulders are hunched over. He tries to run past him but she stops him, a firm hand on his shoulder. “Winona’s with him now. They don’t think it will be long. Just, let them have their moment?”

Bones doesn’t think the woman who shipped her kid off to Tarsus should have even a second alone with Jim but he’s too drained to do anything but nod and slam his back into the hallway wall, sliding down until he’s sitting down, his legs sprawled out uselessly in front of him. 

Winona comes out a few moments later and just nods at him and he’s up and into Jim’s room before he even registers it. 

“Told you.” Jim says when Bones positions himself on the bed, finding one of Jim’s hands and brushing his lips over his knuckles. 

“Tell me you’ll be okay?” Jim rasps. 

Bones doesn’t brush the tears from his face, just lets them slide down and pull on his lips so that he can taste the salt when he opens his mouth. 

“I’ll be okay.” And he leans down and kisses Jim’s forehead, staying there for a few moments because he knows that he’s the opposite of okay. But he doesn’t want Jim to know that. 

“Liar."


	92. Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo sees him on the train every day.

Leo sees him on the train every day; the guy in the faded jeans and sweater, who settles in with a new book every time, with glasses just perched on the bridge of his nose and his right leg bouncing slightly like the train car over the rails. He’s a jumble of limbs and energy, clearly uncomfortable with something so mundane as commuting, a circumstance that Leo barely manages to grumble through each morning, an unorganized mess of missing car keys, dead phones without his ticket, a spilled coffee mug. 

But God, the guy is beautiful. He makes Leo keep getting on the damn train at hell o'clock in the morning, when everyone stumbles into their seats and blearily focuses forward like the train is bringing them to their salvation and not their daily routines of jobs and responsibilities.

The guy has hair the color of the rare wheat fields in Georgia, and the bluest of eyes (when Leo gets a glance at them their icy clear and blue but not unkind). He smiles at Leo once, this stranger from the train, and it’s wonderful and bright and God he thinks that it saved his whole day (the day he lost the patient on the table from a six car pile up). 

His voice too is just something. His voice is the type Leo wants to hear early in the morning when they wake up, or high pitched and begging when Leo makes him come (not that he thinks about that much on the train but still). He wants to hear the laughter that he knows is there, waiting to be shared. 

The only thing he knows about him is that his name is Jim. He caught a glimpse of his ID when he pulled out his ticket for the conductor once. He also knows that they part ways when they get to the transferring station. Jim takes the path train downtown and Leo the subway uptown to the hospital. 

He wants to know Jim's story beyond the pieces he puts together every morning.

If only he could just say hello.


	93. Blood on his Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's blood on Bones' hands.

Sometimes after the shooting, in that moment between churning through a nightmare and waking, pulse pounding, tangled in sheets, alone, the after images and feelings will linger on Bones' skin. 

Like this: the blood drying quickly between his fingers, between clenched and unclenched fists, spattered on his jeans in the weirdest shapes. If Jim were where he was supposed to be, sitting next to him, he would point out that the one near Bones' left knee kind of looks like a giraffe kissing an elephant. His white button down is soaked along the edges, the sleeves sticking to his wrists, co-mingling with sweat and dirt and whatever else he caught on the pavement as he skidded to Jim's side after the phaser went off. 

They wouldn't let Bones operate. A Starfleet guard put a goddamn hand on his chest and pushed him out of the triage doors. It was all it took for him to crumple backward, stumbling into the wall just outside, his legs akimbo, his pulse still thundering. The ethics board may not have officially stripped his title as they search for a reason to discharge him from Starfleet but they might as well have stripped him of everything else while they deliberate his decision to use Khan's blood, keeping him outside as someone else works on Jim. 

Murphy's Law was a son of a bitch. Just the act of Bones being barred from Starfleet medical, from the ER, had seemingly been like a magnet. Jim ended up with an infection last week, curled up in bed in a c-shape, shivering beyond Bones' help, desperate to stay in their apartment than go to Medical. Bones couldn't even call in a prescription for more hypos and it had taken some wheedling but he finally got a friend to drop something off. 

His worst fear was always being unable to help Jim--though it usually took shape in the form of being away from Jim on the ship while Jim bled out on a planet and not outside their apartment, disrupting a burglary in progress at their neighborhood liquor store. 

He should have know, hearing the gun shot, the shouting, the wail of the police sirens, heart colliding with his chest cavity as he vaulted down the last flight of stairs and across the street only to find Jim bleeding out in the entranceway as onlookers gawked. 

The nightmare includes begging. Begging Jim to stay with him, begging someone to help him stop the bleeding, begging the EMTs to go faster, fucking hurry please, to the ER. And then they arrive at the ER and he's begging to go in, pleading to let him help as they run along the bio-bed. 

And the flurry of activity in his nightmare slows to a heart-wrenching stop--the moment before impact, the deer in the headlights moment. His ears are trained by now that he hears the commotion, the call for a Code Blue, can imagine in frightening realistic detail the frantic ministrations as they try to get Jim’s heart to start again. And Bones realized he stopped breathing minutes ago but he doesn't care. His legs are shaking and his vision blurs and there is too much blood on his hands.


	94. Enchanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enchanted AU

“I swear to all that is holy, if he mentions a true love’s kiss I will dropkick him in the stomach.” Leo muttered to himself as he aggressively mixed the pancake batter.

Jo giggled as she peered around the corner of the kitchen threshold, watching Jim tidy up the living room. It was like having a real prince from one of the old Disney Vids in the house.

“It’s magic!” She said, watching the vein in her father’s head nearly pop out of his head.

“It’s disturbing.” Her dad muttered.

A week ago days ago they had been on their way home from one of Jo’s Orchestra concert. She had mastered Ode to Joy on her Viola and had won the solo in the fourth grade band and and orchestra concert.

They were just turning off the main road toward their apartment when the man ran into the road. The man dressed up as a freaking prince, for Christ’s sake like a reject from the Renaissance Fair or something. And Jo, his baby girl with a heart of gold, begged her dad to stop the car, when his instincts told him to keep going, to help the nice man. And Jesus, he had no idea why he did it but he offered the guy a place on the couch (Jo would later tell the story and say her dad was enthralled by the man's deep blue eyes). He seemed harmless enough and Leo kept a bat under the bed, just in case.

But the singing. That was not okay. Leo admitted that the days that followed contained more smiles caused by a person other than his daughter and that he had songs about bravery and true love stuck in his head while he scrubbed in at work. But he just couldn’t handle the freaking forest animals suddenly appearing at the window. Jim, wherever the hell he was from, was a magnet for weird fairytale crap. At least it made Jo happy.

And God help him, maybe he was happy too. Until Jim mentioned that his prince was coming to save him and bring him home. Well, he hadn’t been counting on that. Especially when he sprung this on him in the middle of Central Park in song.

_"Your what?"_

"My prince!" Jim exclaimed, cooing at twins in a stroller while the nanny gaped at him.

"But what--"

 _What about us._ He wanted to say at the time. And that's when he realized he was fucked. He was in love with a fairy-tale prince. 

A fairy-tale prince who had been stood up by his prince. And who Leo was maybe, just maybe falling in love with as he made a large pancake breakfast and the prince made grand plans for a feast in their apartment as was his custom to celebrate new friends back in his kingdom. 

Leo wasn't screwed, no he wasn't. But he couldn't help the way his heart filled when he saw Jim make Jo giggle or the way he told her grand stories of his battles and of saving neighboring villages and kingdoms from dragons and wicked sorcerers named Nero. 

And when Nero made Jim collapse at their feast a week later and Jo screamed so shrill that it nearly drowned out his own guttural sound as he watched the prince,  _his prince,_ tumble, deep blue eyes lifeless as Leo dove to catch him. 

"Is he dead, daddy?" Jo sobbed next to him. 

But Leo was frozen, his hands tangled in the navy blue button up Leo had let him borrow ( _This is what you wear to a feast?_ Jim had asked. _This is what I think you should wear,_ Leo had told him, lips pressed together as he watched the other man put it on, buttoning it up over tight abs and muscles that actually made Leo a bit weak in the knees). 

"Jim," He whispered, face just inches from the other man's face. "Please?"

And then he did something very foolish and probably very brave all the same. 

He kissed him. 

And then with a gasp out of some damn fairy-tale, Jim was kissing him back.

After that, well... (and if someone had told him he'd utter those five words ever in his life outside of reading Jo a bedtime story, he'd have sent them upstairs to his colleagues in neurology)

They lived happily ever after. 

 


	95. Peach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff Prompt: Jim sneaks away to Georgia while Bones is in a day long exam to get a basket of fresh peaches. When Bones comes out, he sees Jim and Jim says "I know how much you like fresh peaches" turns around and smacks his ass. Bones is scarlet.

It actually isn’t hard to get to Georgia, if one really was determined enough. Bones always makes it sound a million miles away. 

Bones had also made this xenoanatomy and xenophysiology exam seem like it was the end of his Starfleet career, getting all grouchy and studying non-stop for days on end, pausing only to do his clinic hours. 

Jim really really hated when Bones got stressed. 

So he had a free day and a night of bad planning that led him to a shuttle to Atlanta, Georgia. In all his travels, he’d never been, and that thought alone was enough to motivate him. 

The idea of surprising Bones with fresh peaches was another. 

Jim wanted a cobbler, damnit and Bones refused to used can or replicated peaches. 

The farm stand outside of the Shuttle port was a godsend. He bought two basketfuls, tipped the lady extra and was well on his way back to their apartment by the time Bones got back. 

The look on his face was priceless. Bones was sometimes just as emotionally constipated as Jim sometimes and treated gifts with almost the same amount of suspicion that Jim did.

He turned a bright red at the basket that Jim handed to him and even more red when Jim slapped his ass. 

“Make me a cobbler!" 

"I’ll fucking make you into a cobbler, kid.” Bones said and dumped the basket on the floor before pinning Jim up against the wall just outside the kitchen.

“Yummy.” Jim licked his lips. 


	96. Snow Vulcan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you want to build a snowman?”

“Do you want to build a snowman?” Is the first thing out of Jim's mouth as he bounces at edge of their bed like an eager puppy, a mess of bedclothes tangled around him. 

Bones covers his head with Jim’s pillow, comforted by the warmth and smell of his husband but also that it muffles Jim's off key singing of a very annoying old Terran child's film. 

“I swear to God, I am not showing you any more movies.”

 “Joanna loved it! That new screen share holo app is pretty cool. Now you can’t be grouchy about not seeing her until Christmas if we watch a holiday themed film together every night.”

Bones throws the pillow at him, which his husband dodges easily. Their one week surveying a newly discovered ice planet, (which Jim described as, “Like Delta Vega, except less primitive and without the dinosaur monsters. Bones hadn’t wanted to read into that comment and Spock looked a little green) was quickly turning into a Christmas vacation. 

“Come on, Bones. Let’s build a snowman!" Jim tugs at his hand, slotting their fingers together as he did so. 

Bones grits his teeth, unwilling to brave the freezing temperatures and glaring landscape, as he prays to the good lord above to save him from suffering fools and then climbs out of bed to bundle up. Never let it be said that Leonard McCoy is a pushover. 

A half hour later and they had everything but the face down--though the "snow man" was looking rather lean and definitely not the usual ones that featured in the films they had been watching.  Jim was spending an awful lot of time sculpting ears. 

"It’s a Snow Vulcan.” Jim states matter of factly and snaps a photo on his comm of it to show Jo later. 

Bones snorts when Spock walks by on his way out of the science building, just one of many in the warren of buildings that Starfleet set up. From the looks of it-and this is only after a five year mission with the guy-he looked half amused and half exasperated.  Bones finds as he watches Jim fashion a blue scarf around the neck of the Snow Vulcan, that he's just happy to have taken part of it. 

That is until Jim nails him in the back with a powdery snowball, disappearing at a run to hide behind Scotty who was smoking a pipe and muttering as Keenser made snow angels. Bones doesn't care if it's mutiny, he scoops some snow, quickly molding it into a damn good ball and hitting his husband and got Jim right on the side of his face. 

It's not long until the rest of the crew and Starfleet officers from the base join in. 

Freezing, numb and a grin as wide as the shadows as the sun starts to set, Bones follows his friends back into the mess where he plans on helping Jim get Spock drunk on hot chocolate. But not before he kisses his husband's neck because even after all this time together, the other man surprises him and let's him discover he can surprise himself. 


	97. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hardest thing Bones ever had to do was leave Jim behind.

The hardest thing Bones ever had to do was leave Jim behind. 

Leonard McCoy had been Bones for the 180 days he had been marooned on an island on a planet that his vacation shuttle had crash landed on, christened by one of the other survivors, a cocksure idiot that he had fallen in love with about sixty days in. 

He kept a white knuckled grip on the shuttle's lift with one hand, the other smoothing down his daughter's hair as she screamed for Jim as they lifted farther and farther from the planet's surface and into the gaping mouth of the rescue shuttle's mouth. 

There wasn't room for Jim and the other survivors on the shuttle and the other man was too sacrificing to allow anyone else to stay and keep them safe. 

So he kissed Bones, knocking their foreheads together and then squeezed Jo's hand before pushing them toward the waiting lift where the other survivors, the ones chosen to go to safety due to injuries or age, rocked uncertainly. 

“I’ll come back for you. I promise.” Bones had said as he climbed into the lift. 

“I know you will.” Jim had smiled, hands splayed in a wave, as if they were just leaving for work in the morning. 

When they got on the shuttle and emergency staff were handing out rations, taking vitals, wrapping them in as many blankets as they could stand, Jo pressed her nose against the window as they lifted farther and farther away, watching as Jim became blurrier and brlurried and Bones tried to ignore the way his eyes looked a little redder the farther they got away. 

Just above the clouds, with the outline of land just still visible, a shudder tore through the earth below. Bones didn’t expect for the island to disappear, just like he didn’t expect Jo to scream or for the Captain of the Shuttle, a Vulcan named Spock who had promised Jim to keep them safe, not to go back. 

“Please, we have to go back. Drop me off. I can help. I can-” Bones is rambling, he’s rambling to the rhythm of his heartbeat, which is erratic. Jo sobbing against him as his voice gets more pleading, more shrill. 

“I am sorry, Doctor.” Spock says before turning back around and heading away from where Bones, Jo and the rest of the ship are, crowded to capacity and all in a state of shock at what they’ve just seen. 

Jim can’t be gone. He can’t be lost. There’s got to be a way back to the island.


	98. Tattoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and Bones discuss the idea of a tattoo.

Bones is kissing down his stomach while Jim lazily cards his hands through Bones hair. It’s an early Sunday afternoon and they're still tangled together in their cool sheets with nothing to do for the rest of the day. And that’s beautiful. 

“What if I were to get Bones tattooed on my ass?” Jim asks, his mouth twisting into a grin when Bones lets out a huff of laughter, the breath cooling the part of his skin that his lips just left. 

“You really want to let a needle anywhere near that ass?" 

"You always say you own it.” Jim says, laughter bubbling up at the thought. He does fucking hate needles though. 

“Why are you so hell bent on a tattoo anyway?" 

Jim had been talking about them for the past week, ever since they visited the planet where all the inhabitants had secrets tattooed on them in a place only their lovers could see. 

"I don’t know. Like the permanency of it. Being so sure of something you want it tattooed on you.” Jim pauses in his ministations to Bones hair. 

They’re quiet for a moment as Bones comes back to the top of the bed and lies in the space beside Jim’s body, lacing together the fingers of his right hand with Jim's. 

“Dolor hic tibi proderit olim.”

Bones snorts. “Only you would speak a dead language in bed.”

Jim looks at their entwined fingers, holds them up to inspect them. “It means, a rough translation anyway, someday this pain will be useful to you. Always wanted it as a tattoo.”

Bones is quiet again, his brown eyes looking at something over the bed, probably at whatever half buried memories that sentence brought up.

“Do you really believe that?”

Jim shifts so that their faces can face, Jim lifting himself on his shoulder. “Sometimes. In some small way, it brought me you, right?”

Bones kisses him again, takes his own meaning from it all. It’s a sweet, slow kiss, just like the smaller ones he administered down Jim’s stomach. 

When he breaks away, Bones grins, the contemplative look leaving his eyes and replaced by something lighter. “Pain in my ass, is what you brought me.”

Jim throws his head back and laughs. 


	99. The Wedding Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wedding Date AU

“I think I would miss you even if we had never met.” Leo said, inches from Jim’s face. In the weeks that he had spent pretending Jim was his boyfriend, this was the most intimate they had gotten (and that included the drunken sex they had two nights ago) without anyone watching them. And even still, it was all a cliché: the rain, the fact that he was in a drenched suit, the fight he had just had with Jocelyn in front of the whole wedding party. 

Jim’s mouth quirks up in his damning charming, soft grin. “You too, Bones.”

And then they part. Jim to walk to the taxi to take him to the airport and Leo back to the wedding party and the disaster that was the rest of the weekend, that is if the wedding was still on. 

He’s about to turn back to his parent’s farmhouse when Jim calls him back, strides the few feet and grabs him around the neck. “That was for us.” Jim tells him and Leo tries to ignore the swelling in his chest and throat, the urge to wring Clay fucking Treadway’s neck. As if he, and not Leo himself, is the cause of all of this. 

Jocelyn just had to get remarried. Leo just had to hire an escort to impress the family, Jim just had to be perfect and Leo just had to fall in love with him. 

And now it was all over. The jig was up. He could no longer play a game with a man who he had paid to keep him company, a man who he had slept with after Clay’s bachelor party. Back to reality. 

Leo couldn’t watch the taxi drive away when he was dying to be leaving with it. 

And then the car stopped. And then Jim got out and Bones--because fuck it, the nickname had stuck--was running towards him, leaving his family, the farce of a wedding, and any hope of an uncomplicated relationship behind. Just the way it was supposed to be. 


	100. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones, Jim and their breakfast.

Bones loves making breakfast. When he lived with Jocelyn and Joanna, he would wake up early on Sundays and make a large spread; pancakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits. He knew he’d miss it, coming to the academy with their shitty dorm replicators and shoebox kitchens. 

But Jim finagles his way into a fourth year cadet apartment for the two of them and they suddenly have a kitchen. It’s not great and it still resembles a shoebox, but at least Bones can cook. 

Bones thanks Jim for it every Sunday by making the same huge breakfasts he made in Georgia, actually surprised when the kid eats. 

“Pancakes, Bones. I fucking love pancakes.”

Jim barely eats anything else but can consume a stack of pancakes with a healthy slab of butter dosed with brown sugar maple syrup in one sitting.

And those first few months, when they settle into some odd kind of friendship bound by Sunday pancakes,  Bones actually feels like he can make it work at the academy, although he’d never tell Jim that. Wouldn’t want to inflate the kid’s ego any more. 


	101. Fear of Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim had never had a fear of falling.

Jim had never had a fear of falling. 

He had a fear of staying alive. 

His parent’s marriage was a cautionary tale from day one that was simply told: Love someone and you’ll inevitably get hurt. It’s why he never wanted to love. 

It was as if at twelve years old he had seen every evil foreshadowed in the leap of a car over a quarry edge. And in an act of bravery he is sure he’ll never have again, he jumped out before he could fall. 

But then Sam left and Tarsus happened, his mother called him George and never looked back. It might have been easier to fall. 

But years later when he has a split second to leap in front of a phaser blast or risk losing Bones. He chooses to leap in a heartbeat. And he finally falls, literally and figuratively, of course. But it was worth it.


	102. Home for the Holidays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Hallmark movie: two strangers are forced on a road trip together when the airports close due to weather and they both need to get home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

“I swear on Bing Crosby’s balls if you don’t get me on a goddamn plane, I will transfer every single mile and make this shit stain of customer service go viral.”

Jim wasn’t sure what was more impressive–the use of Bing Crosby in an oath or the fact that the guy in front of him–stubbled, built, with just enough southern twang to sound polite while he was cursing you out–looked so good while doing it. 

He missed what the concierge said, which was a shame because Jim would have liked to tape that reaction and play it whenever he felt pretty fucked up. 

“Can I help you?” The next concierge asked, taking his hopeful boarding pass and ID. 

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re completely booked due to the delays.”

Now it was Jim’s turn to curse. 

***

Two hours and two shots later found Leo at the rental car desk. He was sober, thank fuck, but he was boarding on livid, ready to throw a temper tantrum that would have put Joanna’s three-year-old ones to shame. 

“I’m sorry, sir, but I just gave my last available car–a Honda minivan to that gentlemen.” 

Leo swiveled his head with such speed that might have been comical if he wasn’t ready to pounce on this asshat who took his ride. He needed that car. Without a word to the clerk–and really he knew it wasn’t their fault for weather delays–he stalked toward the blonde man in the leather coat (who the fuck wore a leather coat in Iowa in the Winter?)

“Hey, kid.”

The guy, a few years younger and most definitely not a kid, blinked at Leo with the most beautiful blue eyes that Leo had ever seen. His words caught in his breath. 

The man sighed. “Where you going?”

“What?”

“You want to buy these kids. They’re not for sale. But I might be able to drive you halfway.”

“Hell no. I’ll drive myself. And everyone has a price.”

“I need to be somewhere, same as you. No price. Where are you going? I’m only offering once. I’ve got to get on the road.”

“Georgia. Just outside Atlanta. You?”

The kid’s grin was slow and delighted. “Georgia. Just outside Atlanta.”

***

“Turn that goddamn music off for Christ’s sake.”

Leo was sleeping off his hangover with his head reclined on the passenger headrest, his scarf over his eyes. He had dozed for a bit but woke up to an annoying off-key rendition of White Christmas along with the radio. 

Jim, his new traveling companion, gasped. “You don’t like Buble?”

Leo grumbled in response and reached down for the cup of donut holes, popping a powdered one in his mouth. 

“So, what are you risking life and limb for with a rackish yet impossibly handsome stranger?”

Leo chocked on some powder and Jim reached over and thumped him on the back. 

“What  _are you_  risking life and limb for?” Leo countered. 

“Touche.” Leo watched as Jim starred ahead, the light from the passing cars lighting up his eyes briefly. “I’m half Jewish and half…well, we celebrate Christmas. I mean, technically I’m more agnostic but…” Jim shrugged. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, my mom and dad met around Christmas and Hannukah and it was their things for years. And then he died. If I don’t get home this will be the first Christmas my mom will spend alone.”

Leo nodded, looking out at the passing snow drifts as they drive farther and farther down the interstate. 

“My ex-wife and I got divorced last year. This is the first Christmas that I won’t be living with my daughter. I couldn’t not be there.”

Jim flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, changing lanes to get around a semi. 

“Good reasons,” Jim said finally. 

Leo popped another donut in his mouth so Jim wouldn’t be able to tell how raspy his voice would get. 

***

Two flat tires, one near accident and a terrifying moment when Leo, now Bones, had to jab a epi-pen into his new friend’s thigh and they were crossing the boarder into Georgia. 

Jim whooped from the passenger side. He had refused the hospital but Bones didn’t trust the pale complexion and bruised skin below his eyes so Bones forced him into the passenger seat. 

Bones pulled into the nearest rest stop and took a shaky breath. 

If Bones got off this exit, he’d be to Jo in a half hour, a day and a half before his worse case scenario had planned for. 

If he continued down the thruway for another hour and then got off an exit then, he’d get Jim to his mom just before sun down on the first night of Hannukah. 

“Hey,” Jim said, suddenly, reaching a hand out to pry Bones’ white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “It’s okay. You take the car.”

“What?” Bones exclaimed, wrenching the emergency break on. 

“I can take the bus or–”

“If you say something as asinine as hitchhike, so help me, James T. Kirk.”

Jim ducked his head. “You sound like my mom.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Now let’s go get something to eat, you look like death and if I don’t piss now we won’t be getting our deposit back on the rental.”

Jim snorted. 

***

A half hour later, Jim was dozing in the car when it eased to a halt, a street lamp burning bright behind Jim’s closed eyes. 

“Hey,” Bones, this stranger, accidental new best friend and potentially the love of his life, said softly, one hand gently nudging him awake. 

He blinked his eyes, passing a hand over the grit collected there, and found that he was staring at his mother’s new house. The one she had bought because Iowa was getting too cold, too lonely, too full of memories of a husband that had died years ago but had lingered for years like a vengeful ghost, kept alive by her guilt and refusal to move on. Jim had found the house and called the broker and had moved her down here himself, somewhere warm and bright and as far away from the gossip and shadows of Riverside as they could get. It didn’t matter if Jim couldn’t leave behind the Kirk homestead quite as easily, his mom deserved a change. 

“What?” He asked, blinking again just in case he was seeing some other house or the bus station that Bones had agreed to drop him off at an hour ago. 

The door opened and his mother stepped our, wrapping a coat around herself as she raised a hand in greeting but not to him–to  _Bones._

 _“_ How?” He asked, his voice a tired wave of confusion and wonder. 

“Made a phone call. Your mom is quite lovely. Not sure where a shit stirring menace like you comes from.”

Jim laughed and got out of the car. His mom took a step out onto the lawn, which was damp, and then ran to him, engulfing Jim in a bear hug that only people who claimed you as theirs were capable of. 

“Jim,” she breathed. “You made it.” 

“I did,” he said, still full of wonder. He squeezed her for a few moments, taking in her mom scent–from lemon from her favorite dishwashing soap, to lavender and vanilla from her shampoo, and cinnamon from her homemade crust and morning buns. 

“But, Jo?” Jim asked when he finally pulled away. 

Bones pursed his lips, his eyes a happy glint of mischief. “Apparently, my dear ex’s new in-laws live about ten minutes from here? And they’re spending the holidays with them?”

Jim threw his head back and laughed. Then he reached forward and grabbed for Bones’ hand just as he wanted to since they first got into the car, and every time in between. 

“Thanks, Bones.”

“Nah. I think it’s you I have to thank,” Bones said and squeezed his hand back as they all walked together toward the house and toward whatever their first holiday together would bring. 


	103. Always and Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Two friends from childhood vow to always be friends, but they grow apart when one of them moves away. Fast forward couple decades where one is successful and the other has fallen on harsh times and is homeless. The successful one takes in their old best friend and falls in love, but doesn't act on it because it would be taking advantage of them. The homeless friend gets back onto their feet, moves out and after getting a job and places of their own, asks out their friend on a date.

“Always and forever, you promised.” Jimmy Kirk whispered from his sleeping bag just feet away from Leo’s. They were sleeping in a pop-up tent behind the farmhouse, close enough that they could run inside if something spooked them and far enough away that they couldn’t quite see Leo’s mom and dad peeking at them from the wide kitchen windows.   
  
“Yeah, but only if you let me go to sleep, brat.” Leo grumbled, rolling over so that he can get a glimpse of the lively fire that was still blazing from their s'mores attempt earlier. They ended up eating more marshmallows and chocolate than an actual put together s'more but the fire was still comfortable and he knew his parents would make sure it was out completely before they went to bed.   
  
Jim sat up, face lit up by the fire and freckles standing out against an otherwise pale face. He got so white in the winter that Leo’s mama fed him extra servings of everything. “You can’t promise something in exchange for something else. That won’t count.”  
  
Leo sighed. Jim was four-years-younger and his best friend regardless. They had shuffled together out of boredom and desperation–Leo’s mama volunteering to babysit Jim when Winona first came to Madison, Georgia, with nothing to her name except a five-year-old shadow named Sam and a wailing baby. The town gossip said that Winona’s husband had died on the day baby James was born and that she had fled Iowa as fast and as far as she could go.  
  
“I meant it, okay? You’ll be my best friend always and forever, no matter what.”  
  
That seemed to appeal Jim, who snuggled back into his sleeping bag and fell asleep minutes later. Leo tried not to think what always and forever looked like and if that was a promise he would keep–even if he already knew he would do everything and anything to try.   
  
***  
Leo was starting to hate the townhouse he had bought the year of his big promotion to head of surgery at Atlanta General.   
  
It was draftier than it seemed, too big and took too long to make it look presentable for when his mother came over.   
  
She had a penchant for announcing a visit a day before she would arrive, about to drop a bomb that would upset his fragile staus quo for months after she went back to Madison, leaving him untethered in Atlanta.   
  
Two years ago, it was that she was selling the farmhouse and relocating to the new over 50 community (more luxury than comfort). Last year it was that she was remarrying–fifteen years after David McCoy had passed away and twelve after she started vehemently protesting (and unfriending) anyone who tried to set her up. Her new beau, as she called him, was named Christopher Pike and he had moved to Georgia from San Francisco, where he spent years before retirement teaching at some prepatory for rich service brats.   
  
Two days ago, she had called and annouced that her  _and Chris_ were coming for the weekend–she was desperate to see her son before their Christmas vacation to England and Scotland and had decided to stage a Christmas brunch, lunch and dinner into the three days she would be invading his home. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have any room, it was just that he had finally gotten used to the quiet that three oversized stories afforded and had enjoyed being a confirmed bachelor, no matter his mother’s protestations that he find someone after the divorce. But five-years post-marriage had made him comfortable with living alone, no one to balk at his long nights at the hospital, no one to nag him about not spending enough time being together.   
  
***  
He was prepared for his mother and Christopher Pike. He was not prepared for Jimmy Kirk.   
  
“Hey,” Jim said, a tad sheepishly, ducking his head as Leo stared, open-mouthed at the new arrival at his front door.   
  
“Leo, you remember, Jim, right?” Eleanora McCoy unwrapped her rather long multicolored scarf and set it on a hook provided by a sturdy wooden hall tree.   
  
Chris Pike still kept every stitch of winter clothing on, as if he was ready to bolt the first moment of trouble.   
  
Leo, still lost for words, nodded. 

“Well, he’s been staying with us for a bit and we couldn’t leave him alone for Agnes Carlton and her harpies to devour him. And we knew you wouldn’t mind–what with all the space you have! It’ll be wonderful to catch up again, I’m sure.”

  
Leo hadn’t seen Jim in almost twenty-years. If his mama hadn’t said something he wouldn’t have believed that the scruffy, skinny guy in front of him was Jim Kirk–the same shit-stirring little brat that had been his best friend during childhood. Whenever he pictured Jim Kirk grown up, he pictured him somewhere cold–chopping wood in layers of flannel with a gorgeous wife and brood of equally adorable and raucous children. What he saw instead. despite the obvious gap in years and fact that he had indeed grew up, was an emaciated, rough looking kid.   
  
Unable to stop himself he shuffled forward and hugged him. The other man smelled of fresh air, salt and the lingering cologne that he knew Chris Pike wore, telling him that this jacket was a hand-me-down from the other man’s closet.   
  
“Sorry,” Jim whispered in his ear as they broke the hug but Leo was unsure of whatever the man could be sorry about.   
  
***

“Before you start–” his mama said in the kitchen as she started unpacking vegetables from her trusty old farmer’s market bag that must have been as old as Leo himself.   
  
“What were you thinking, mama? And did you hunt him down just to torture me?” He’s sorting through the rest of her groceries with a purpose, desperate to let his hands do something as his mind races.  
  
“He’s homeless, Leo.”  
The wrapped baguette that he was holding nearly drops to his hardwood floor.   
  
Before he can say anything else, Eleanora rushes on. “He contacted Chris,” at Leo’s confused look his mother said, “Old friend of the family, if you believe it or not. So he contacted Chris a few weeks ago about work. He came back to Georgia with nothing, Leo. And we haven’t been able to find out what happened. God only knows where Winona is. bless her heart.”

“And your solution is to leave him with me?”

“Well, I know you were close and you would still have been if –”  
If that bastard didn’t insist on taking the Kirks away, left unsaid.   
  
The bastard being Winona’s new husband, a brute of a man who everyone in town called “Gaston.” He and Winona met at the factory that she worked at and he insisted on whisking the family away to greener pastures. Jim (like Leo) had been devastated. Madison was the only town he knew.  The McCoys had even volunteered to keep Jim for a bit, to finish out the end of the year of seventh grade but Gaston had charmed Winona into packing up the clapboard house they lived in and moving to California, where he insisted they could become something more.   
  
Last he heard, Gaston had been forced out of the house after leaving the Kirks in shambles. Sam had run away, Jim had done a brief stint in a juvenile detention center and Winona had buried herself in work (she was the best engineer Madison had ever seen and apparently that went for Mountain View too).  
  
“Jimmy just needs to get on his feet, Leo. Chris is going to get him a job at the community college as soon as we get back and see about signing him up for some classes. He’s apparently a genius, did you know?” Eleanora’s eyes twinkled with pride.   
  
***

It took four days of awkward side-stepping for Jim and Leo to get to know each other again. Once they did, they fell into the same banter and inside-jokes that had dominated most of their adolescent and pre-teen conversations.   
  
It took two weeks for Leo, now dubbed Bones as soon as Jim learned he was an old sawbones like his dad, to fall in love with his best friend.   
  
Once it happened, it felt inevitable. He couldn’t imagine a time when he wasn’t in love with Jim.  
But damn if the timing wasn’t right.   
  
Jim’s face still held that gaunt look that months of living in homeless shelters and on the streets did to a guy. He eventually got out the story from Jim: he had a good job at startup in Palo Alto. But when he walked in on his boss “harassing” one of their young interns, Jim got into an “altercation” and was fired (Jim was as vague as possible, probably in part for having told the story too many times and the rest because the vague terms made it easier to deal with). Because it was a startup, Jim had been living in the co-op that most of the engineers had shared and with that he had nothing but his car and the few belongings a sympathetic co-worker got for him. He stayed around the area in the hopes that he could get the rest of his things and maybe someone else would report the asshole to the cops so that Jim could at least get a reference and move on.   
  
In the end, he sold his car and bought a one-way plane ticket to the last place he felt home: Madison.   
  
“I’ll make this up to you,” Jim said, one night, pinks flush with the whisky they had shared from the highball glasses Leo inherited from his father.   
  
“Nah. That’s what best friends do, kid. Always and forever, remember?”

***

A week later, Jim was gone. His bed was tidy and a note lay on a pillow, ripped out from the pad of DR. DAVID MCCOY that Leo realized the brat must have had after all these years.  _Thanks._ It read.  _For Everything.  
_ __  
His mother called him.  
  
“We’re back. Is Jim ready to come to Madison?  We can pick him up tomorrow.”

Leo took a deep breath. “Jim’s not here, Ma.”

“What?” Her voice took on a shrill quality that she usually used when the dogs had accidents on her rugs. “What do you mean?” Her voice was far away and muffled as she said, “Chris! Leo says Jim’s not there.”

“He left.”

His mother let out a string of swear words that would have made Jim proud. “I’ll call you back, Leo. Chris is going to go looking.”

***

Months passed with Leo, Chris and Eleanora dividing their time between Atlanta, it’s suburbs, and Madison. They combed through every homeless shelter in the tri-state area, prowled the streets and alleys for Jim. 

With every passing dead end brought Leo back to those few years after Jim left the first time and his father getting sick. He felt the deep pull of despair and melancholy as winter gave way to spring and spring gave way to a fucking horribly warm Summer.

He spent most of his weekends at the soup kitchen with his mother’s husband, who he realized he liked more for the way he never gave up on Jim, calling in favors, flying back to San Francisco, exhausting lead after lead until Leo wasn’t sure who was more miserable: him or Chris. 

A year passed by the only way it could in this instance, slow and without much of anything to look forward to. Leo found himself talking to a real estate agent about selling the townhouse which was feeling less big and more like a prison without Jim in it. 

***

“Ma, I just want a quiet Christmas.” He insisted on the phone, as he shoved some garland and lights into the closet. His mother had shipped them over in the hopes that it would inspire some holiday spirit but Leo wanted nothing to do with anything holiday or cheer. 

He took the phone away from his ear to protect from her shrill response. His mother and her husband were staying home this Christmas and were insisting that he come back to Madison. He could think of nothing he’d rather do less. 

“Ma, Jesus Ma, hold on.”  He set the phone between his shoulder and cheek, hoping that the Chinese delivery was early and it wasn’t some carolers or something equally unpleasant. 

He swung the door open and dropped his phone. 

Jim Kirk, completely transformed from the last time he saw him, was standing at his front door. Jim Kirk who he had imagined showing up hundreds of times before, except real. 

“Hey Bones,” The completely transformed Jim Kirk said, a smirk lighting up his face with mischief and purpose. 

“Hey Jim.” Leo managed to get out, taking in his perfectly trimmed hair, the dark jacket that framed broad muscled shoulders, the healthy bright glean to his face. 

“I’m sorry about…well, everything.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Jim nodded, swallowing hard. “I am.”

“Good, though my mama and Chris might demand some explanations.”

Jim looked away, the same sheepish expression that he’d seen just a year ago playing on his face. “Yeah. Definitely.”

“Do you want to come in?”

Jim shook his head. “No, Bones.”

Leo couldn’t help but let his shoulders sink at that. He could hear his mother’s high voice from the floor, demanding to know if Leo was still there. 

“I want you to come out with me.”

“What?”

“You. Me. Like a date?”

Leo blinked. 

“I’m here to cash in on my promise, Bones.”

“Promise?” Leo’s voice was a rasp as his mouth got drier and drier by the second. 

“You know,” Jim’s grin widened. “Always and forever.”


	104. Holiday Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hallmark movie plot: A coffee shop barista asks a little girl if she's ready for Christmas, but is unprepared for her response of "I'm not having Christmas." A little snooping, and the barista learns that the girl is still reeling from her mother's desertion mere months earlier. The barista sets out to show the girl - and her bitter, jaded father - that angels are still among us, that romance can blossom any old time, and that everyone needs a little Christmas.

Jim peeked around the curtains of Brew & Bean, the same ones that Nyota just got done fluffing when she slapped his hand away.   
  
“Stop, you’re actually stalking customers, that’s creepy, even for you.”  
  
Jim was  _not_  actually stalking customers. “They’re not in here yet, I’m just wondering if they will be.”  
  
“They will.” Nyota bunched the curtains again and sighs when they don’t stay, glaring at him for wasting her effort. “Joanna told me that they go to therapy and then get hot chocolates afterward.”  
  
“You’re on a first name basis with Joanna?”  
  
Nyota scoffed. “Don’t get jealous. You just want to be on a first name basis with her dad.”  
  
It was true. The father and daughter had been coming in to the Bean for two weeks now and Jim knew this: her mama disappeared on December 1st, they weren’t having Christmas this year because they were flying back to Georgia instead and her daddy was grumpy about it. Joanna was okay with that though because in March when he had more vacation time they were having a Christmas in the Bahamas on a trip for the two of them. She hoped her daddy was less grumpy by then. She was sad that her mom was gone but also happy because her parents didn’t fight anymore and daddy was grumpy still but not sad.   
  
Jim also knew that he had a humongous crush on the newly single father and prayed to every power that be that the guy could possibly be bi or at the very least be willing to have a friend who was a full-time barista and part owner of “one of the best coffee joints in San Francisco” (the San Francisco Chronicle’s words, not Jim’s).   
  
The door opened with it’s cheery jingle and Jim jumped back, dodging around the corner to avoid being spotted by the window,   
  
“But daddy, I’m responsible.”  
  
“I know, buttercup.” Dr. Leonard McCoy, who liked his coffee black, one sugar, splash of milk, said, ushering his daughter through the door.“. "But like it or not, you’re not going to want to walk the dog in the morning and I’m not going to let you do it at night by yourself and with my hours at the hospital, it wouldn’t be fair to a puppy.”  
  
Joanna placed her mittened hands on the counter with such disappointment that Jim wished he had puppies behind the counter instead of caffeine. “Hi Jim. Can I have an extra large hot chocolate with extra whipped cream?”  
  
Dr. McCoy rolled his eyes. “Small hot chocolate and squirt of whipped cream, please.”  
  
Joanna sighed.   
  
“The usual, Dr. McCoy?” Jim asked while sliding the usual red hot chocalate mug that Joanna favored to Nyota who began to stir the hot chocolate–it was a special recipe from his mother in Iowa who had owned her own cafe with his father before Jim was born.   
  
“Ah, Leonard’s fine.” Leonard said, fishing out his wallet from his black jeans. Jim looked away quickly, grabbing another mug to draw his attention away from the perfect fit and bit of stomach he could see as his plaid flannel lifted with the motion of pulling out the wallet.   
  
“On the house today,” Jim grinned. “You want a brownie? Nyota just made a batch.”  
  
“That’s not necessary,” Leonard began while Joanna chirped. “Yes, please!”  
  
It was then that Leonard’s phone trilled and he sighed, ruffling his daughter’s hair and going in the corner to speak.   
  
“So, how’s operation puppy going?” Jim asked as he returned the mug to Joanna, she folded her hands around the steaming cup, blowing gently.   
  
“Pretty bad. Dad’s too grumpy for him to talk sense into.” Jim chuckled at the way the little girl sighed.   
  
“I bet you he’ll come around. Practice those puppy dog eyes like I showed you.”  
  
Joanna scooped a bit of whipped cream with her finger. “Maybe you should practice it on Daddy, just so I can see.”  
  
“And what would I be asking your dad?” Jim swallowed as his mouth and throat conveniently went dry.  
  
“I don’t know. A date, maybe?”  
  
Jim almost dropped the plate of brownies that Ny handed him.   
  
“A date?”  
  
“Oh yeah, and maybe he won’t be so grumpy because he’ll have a friend that’s more than a friend like grandma wants to set him up with in Georgia and then we can have Christmas and I can get a puppy under the tree.” She rocked back on her heels like this was the best plan ever.   
  
Jim breathed slowly and carefully as Leonard came back. “Thanks, Jim,” he said, smiling warmly and gorgeously as he grabbed his mug of coffee and the brownies and went off to his and Joanna’s usual table in the back.   
  
He immediately pivoted and almost collided with Nyota. “Damnit, Kirk.” She said but before she could move around him, he put both hands on her shoulders and grinned.   
  
“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s creepy, stop.” She tried to shrug off his hands but he just squeezed gently.   
  
“Ny. I have an idea. And I need your help.”   
  


***

Leonard McCoy was not a man to hate Christmas. He wanted to, however, strangle every dancing elf, grinning candy cane laden do-wisher who kept insisting that a holy Christmas was the best way to deal with Jocelyn’s departure. 

Departure, of course, was a nicer word for what she did. And he didn’t even care how bad his heart hurt. He ached, inconsolably for his daughter, who was having to deal with a grinch of a dad and no mama for Christmas. 

“Daddy, someone left this here.”

Jo slid a notecard, cheerily depicting a snowman with little woodland creatures dancing around it. In a scrawl that was almost as worse as his own, it read 12 PM, UNION PARK, ICE RINK. 

Leonard groaned. He had no plans to be murdered today by a random stranger. 

“Daddy, please?” Jo pouted, seeing his dubious look. He rolled his eyes. 

“Get your coat.”

Her squeal of delight echoed around the room and despite himself, he smiled. 

***

Four hours later and Leo wondered what horrible karmic event in his life had led him to deserve the day he was having. 

He endured: ice skating at Union Park; taking a photo with Santa (not just Jo, the camera girl insisted upon instructions in the same scrawl that he too must be in the picture with Jo); hot chocolates at Ghirardelli’s; shopping for toys to bring to the foster home, picking out a tree (the smallest, puniest one that needed a home), a cookie baking class with octogenarians, and finally, FINALLY, dinner. He hoped the day was over. 

Each stop was accompanied by a small note, urging them to the next place. He was wondering if his mother had paid someone to set this up but his mother only cared about having her son and granddaughter in Georgia, not about having any Christmas traditions at home in San Francisco. 

And Jo’s smile grew wider, her laugh grew more genuine, she was more talkative, more open, than Leonard had seen her in months. He felt like he had before Jocelyn had left and he didn’t think he would feel like that in a long time. 

When they finally ended up at Beni’s, a favorite Italian restaurant among locals, Jo was dancing into the restaurant, chatting about the big plate of spaghetti and meatballs she was going to eat (a feat that wouldn’t have been possible yesterday, as she ate only a few bites of every meal). 

“You must be Mr. McCoy and Ms. McCoy.” The hostess said, grabbing menus and guiding them to a small table in the back. 

“How did you know?” Jo asked, sliding into her seat. 

“I was told very special guests would be arriving tonight. I’ve been on the lookout for you all day!” The woman sat down a note at Leonard’s seat. 

“From your Secret Santa,” The woman said with a wink. 

Leonard sighed and sat down. 

“What’s it say, daddy?”

He swallowed,  _Dear Leonard. Sorry for taking over your day. I heard that you needed a bit of Christmas spirit. When I was younger, someone set up a day like this for my mom, brother and I to make the holidays suck less. I hope this made things suck less, even for a little while. Enjoy dinner. Merry Christmas._

Leonard showed his daughter the note. 

“So, he didn’t say who it was from?” Joanna asked, her brow furrowed as she flipped the note over. This notecard was two owls in striped scarves and hats. 

“He?”

Jo shrugged. 

He waved the hostess over. “Do you know who set this up?”

The girl looked away but he saw the small grin on her face. 

“You do!” Joanna nearly jumped off her chair. 

“I’m not supposed to say.” At Jo’s look of disappointment, the girl smiled. “But I think that’s stupid and he deserves recognition. He’s in the back, too nervous to come out.”

“I told you, daddy!” Jo crowed and grabbed onto his hand, tugging him toward the kitchen. 

It was there that Leonard found the kid from the Brew and Bean, walking back and forth while the other Brew and Bean barista, Nyota twirled a wine glass in her hand. 

“Ah!” Jim nearly collided with one of the bus boys who was trying to unload a carton of dirty dishes. 

“I knew it was you!” Joanna jumped and ran at Jim. 

“Shit, um, shoot, sorry. You weren’t supposed to know it was me.”

Joanna looked up at Jim, her chin rested on his belly, arms tight around his waist. “Why, Jim?”

“Because, I didn’t want you to think it was…weird.”

Nyota snorted. 

“You did all this for us?” Leonard asked. Jim nodded. “Why?”

“Because no one should be sad at Christmas.”

Jo tightened her hug on Jim and the soft smile that he gave her made something loosen somewhere that Leonard hadn’t known needed to be loose. 

“How can I thank you?” Leonard rasped. 

“You could take him out to dinner.” Nyota said from the corner. 

Jim shook his head. “Not necessary.”

“Have dinner with us.” Leonard said. “Please. And when we come back, just you and I?”

Brilliant blue eyes stared at him, weighing, calculating. And finally he nodded. 

“That would be wonderful.”

“Merry Christmas, Jim.” Jo whispered, as they walked out in the restaurant together, the three of them. 

“Merry Christmas, Joanna.”

 


	105. Thank you for assuming!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the single parent AU prompt ask! I'm having lunch out with my best friend and my kid, and you're really cute, but you absolutely think the two of us are married dads.

Jo is used to it. 

Every single time they go out to a restaurant or a store or even that hike that one time, some busybody with way to much blush on and choking hairspray ambles up to them. 

“Oh aren’t you the cutest things! You know my cousin’s dog walker’s hair dresser’s niece is gay and raising a kid with her partner and well, it’s so brave that y’all–”

It’s about this time that Jim turns a shade of purple that the Crayola box would call “flamingo pink” and her daddy starts stumbling over excuses that are too big for his mouth. 

But the woman is usually too full of her own hot air and walks away feeling proud enough that she might tell the story over Sunday roast, happy that the gays are settling into their little Atlanta suburb. 

Joanna has wanted to make handmade signs for Jim and her dad that say We’re Just Best Friends but she thinks that would cut away at the free pie, ice cream, candy or whatever else they get. 

What bugs her most is that her daddy loves Jim. She knows this, has always known this, even when her parents were still together. And Jim loves her daddy–she can see it in every eye-wink he gives her when she catches him staring after her dad, or the quick way he always tries to make every brush of skin against skin seem casual like he wasn’t fixing to do it in the first place, or the way he says “Bones” in that happy, affectionate way. 

Every time some busybody comes up to them assuming that they’re one big gay happy family she thinks it’s just the universe’s way of trying to get Jim and her dad together. 

So when the man in the trucker hat **MAKE AMERICA READ AGAIN** offers to pay for their lunch, she jumps on the opportunity. “My daddies and I would love that, thank you, sir!”

He chuckles, a deep belly laugh. “My partner Beau and I were always as anxious as a pig at a county fair to be seen together, thought everyone in state lines could tell how we felt. Turns out we were just too dumb and stupid to let the other know.” He slaps his knee and chuckles again and Jo grins down into her milkshake while trying not to notice how her dad and Jim are trying not to look each other and doing a crappy job of it. 

She tracks down the man a year later and sends him a nice thank you note along with their holiday card–the one she insisted they put together–with daddy and Jim grinning like the married fools they are and always should have been. 

 

 


	106. Cuddle Cure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Fluffy mckirk in which bones gets sick and Jim takes care if him, and it turns out cuddles are very good for battling the flu

“Go away.” Bones said as Jim settled onto bed, disturbing Bones' twenty-fifth attempt to get comfortable and fall asleep. But between his racing thoughts, his probable fever, the sore throat that was lingering and the growing sinus headache wreaking havoc on the space from his temples to under his eyes, he wasn't getting any rest. 

“It’s the cuddle cure, Bones!”

“You’re going to get sick.” He sighed after sneezing into the fifth tissue in as many minutes. He didn't want to say the F word for fear of startling his mostly patient med-bay staff but if it acts like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it's probably the flu. 

“No, I’m not." Even as Captain of a Federation starship, he sounded petulant and stubborn.

"Yes, you are. Go bother someone else.”

Jim snuggled closer to Bones in bed, making sure they had enough covers. “No one else I would rather bother.”

Bones rested his head on Jim’s shoulder as Jim carded his hands through Bones hair, rubbing his temples to help with the headache that had started earlier. The flu had worked it’s way through the ship and usually Bones was immune, but this time, he had gotten a nasty case. 

“Thanks kid,” Bones said around a yawn as he said as his tired eyes finally drifted closed. “You’re cuddle cure worked after all.”

Jim smirked and kissed Bones shoulder. “Love you too, Bones. Feel better.”


	107. Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Bones gets Jim back to their quarters and pushes him softly onto the bed and kisses him, he tries not to think about it.

When Bones gets Jim back to their quarters and pushes him softly onto the bed and kisses him, he tries not to think about it. 

He pushes back Jim's hair, still a bit damp, fingers traveling to the nape of his neck as the kiss deepens, swells, consumes. And he tries not to think about it. 

As Jim breathes a sigh as Bones kisses past the corner of his lip, to the side of his chin, already growing stubble, he stops the thoughts in their tracks. 

But it persists, like Jim's hands as he feels for under Bones' borrowed Medbay clothes. 

Just hours earlier he had breathed life back into Jim. Just hours earlier, he had dove into the water seconds after his husband went tumbling over the rocks. 

Bones hands travels lightly over every inch of skin, greedy and savoring, trying to forget about how earlier on the planet, he had broken a rib as he pressed down and down over and over again to get Jim’s heart to beat, to get him to drag air back into his lungs.

As he slowly pulls Jim’s pants and shirt off, kissing and flicking his thumb over Jim’s ribs and stomach, he pushes the thoughts away of how they had to cut him out of his Captain's away uniform and wrap him in heat blankets to fight early signs of hypothermia. How he had held Jim’s hand in a vice like grip he had become accustomed to and refused to change himself, dripping and shaking, terrified that he hadn’t been quick enough, hadn’t managed to bring him back this time. 

And when Jim pants his name after he comes, he can’t help but think about how when Jim finally opened his eyes earlier that morning, he smiled and whispered, "Hey Bones," with his first breath. 


	108. Tuxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They picked out the tuxes together.

They picked out the tuxes together.

Uhura and Carol giggling as they shoved suspenders in both Bones and Jim’s directions, pushing them toward a dressing room in the private floor of the ritziest wedding boutique that Bones has ever stepped foot into--he's pretty sure he rented most of the tuxes he's worn in his life. 

But damn did they look good. Standing in front of the spread of mirrors, showing off the two of them at all angles, every aspect of the smooth lines highlighted, every tight crease that's accentuates all of Jim's lean muscle and Bones' broad shoulders. 

Bones will never forget the almost primal grin on Jim’s face as he leaned forward to whisper in Bones ear as he played with the cuffs.  “Can’t wait to take that off you on our wedding night.”

Bones leaned back, catching his fiancé's mouth in a twisted angle, using their combined weight to push Jim back against the other wall, careful to reach up and cradle his head. “Don’t know if I’ll want to take them off. You look too good."

They probably would have gone making out like teenagers if Uhura hadn't cleared her throat and said that if they wanted to avoid that paparazzi they needed to get out of here soon. 

Bones' couldn't help but snort, knuckles shoved in his mouth to keep from crying out, as Jim reached down to take his pants off, gently plying every careful inch of the fabric off the rest of his body, slowly, teasingly. 

  
"Just you wait," Jim mouths, as he places everything on their handles. 

They spend more money than Bones thought would be possible on the tuxes but Carol glared when he started to protest. 

And as Jim slipped his hand in his, shoving out of a back door to their Starfleet issued car to get away from the first overly eager vultures, he thinks that it was worth it, this small thing, this symbol of their upcoming matrimony, no matter how expensive. 

Bones would have given anything to have worn this to their wedding and not Jim’s funeral. 


	109. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim struggles to write his wedding vows.

Jim struggled over the vows for weeks. And he was the one who insisted they write their own. But holy shit was it hard. 

For all he tried, for all he consulted the sappiest of fucking love songs, movies and his own vast memory of every thing he loved about his fiancé, he couldn't write anything down. 

He wasn't a "write down his thoughts" kind of guy, anyway.

But even when he sat in his favorite corner of the observation deck, the lights dimmed to nearly off, the only image was the starts beyond the huge windows--All he had for his efforts were a blank PADD and a headache.

But tradition and all that dictated that he come up with something ahead of time to say. God knows that Bones deserved the best damn vows he could come up with. He knew that no matter how much the other man pretended to think PDA was sappy and was more gruff than affectionate most days, he spotted his husband to be with his brow furrowed in concentration leaning over the leather bound journal he'd given him for his birthday this year. Bones was trying and probably succeeding, in writing something that would make even Spock cry at their wedding. 

But even up until hours before the wedding, with a hangover from Scotty's attempt at a bachelor party, his thoughts are a jumbled organized mess.

“Uh,’ he says in front of all their guests, under the watchful eye and upturned eyebrow of Spock, who of all people counseled him to "listen to his heart" when he was shitfaced on a chocolate shake Jim insisted he drink at the bachelor party .

"So." He says, clearing his throat and trying not to laugh at Bones expression. Probably waiting for him to get over with it so he can say his own amazing vows. 

 _Don't fuck this up, Kirk._ "I know loving me isn’t easy, Bones. And sometimes it’s a bit crazy. But loving you makes me want to be a better person and-” His hands are suddenly more than a little clammy and he squeezes Bones fingers. Bones leans forward, even if someone Spock, his mother, or the videographer that Starfleet insisted they hire makes a mewl of displeasure at them breaking the ceremony, and kisses his neck from under the collar of his tux.

“I don’t want easy, you infant. I want you. I want crazy.”

"I think that's a song lyric, Bones," he says before his husband kisses him again and tradition is damned. 

Jim just laughs against his lips, wondering what the hell he was worried about anyway. 


End file.
